


Valyrian Steel

by Mellowenglishgal



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Adopting abandoned plotlines, Because someone had to..., Giving our faves what they deserve, Jon has a Twin Sister, R Plus L Equals J, Rewriting the Atrocity!, Serious Season 8 Denial, The Dragon has 3 heads, Very different ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 274,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27353365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellowenglishgal/pseuds/Mellowenglishgal
Summary: 'She was ashamed to have let them down. She was supposed to look after them, after Brandon and Rickon. She was not a Stark; but Robb had entrusted Winterfell to her, to her and Luwin and Bran… She had sent Rickon off with Osha and Shaggydog and knew she would never see them again; she felt it in her marrow. She had Bran alone; and he was forgetting who he was.'Jon Snow's twin-sister was left behind at Winterfell. Years after fleeing the Ironborn, Larra returns.*Also on Fanfiction.net under my account. Please let me know if you find it posted anywhere else.
Comments: 28
Kudos: 86





	1. Beneath the Tree

**Valyrian Steel**

_01_

_Beneath the Tree_

* * *

It was warm, under the great weirwood. Warm, and musty; like living inside an acorn, tucked neatly under the earth. She was as blind as a buried acorn here, surrounded by ageless roots and the soft, relentless cawing of ravens; she didn’t wonder why the gods wanted faces carved into the trees to look out over the world of Men. It was dull in here.

Dull, and timeless: The world went on without them. Days had bled into months: She wondered how many years they had wasted inside the hollow.

It was beautiful outside, in a starkly brutal sort of way. Here in the land of always-winter the winds howled, or whispered, and the snows buried the cave entrance, and melted in the glare of an impossible sun, and through it all, its great ivory trunk groaning in the wind, its fiery leaves like so many bloody hands, the weirwood endured.

Beneath it, impossibly, so did they.

Bran held onto the tangle of roots, the Three-Eyed Raven guiding him in his visions. Bran learned, and she waited.

She waited for Bran; and she waited for the dead. With every scream of the wind, every avalanche of snow roaring across the valleys, her heart leapt, anticipating hordes of the dead pouring through the caves, crashing over them like waves against the shore, destructive, unceasing, tireless.

She was utterly powerless.

And she knew it.

The longer they remained, the more Bran learned; and the weaker she became, waiting, wasting away. She could feel it. The long journey had strengthened her, every last ounce of fat lost as her muscles burned and her blisters turned to calluses and her bones ached and they struggled forever northward.

But with inaction, that hard-earned muscle was wasting away, leaving her emaciated. She saw it in Meera’s face, in the hollowed cheeks and distracted brown eyes losing all hope. They tried to keep themselves busy; to distract them from the aching hunger, the desperation, from wondering…what happened next? How much time did they truly have? How long could they linger beneath the tree, waiting? In a barren wasteland of ice and snow, there was little to distract them: only the Children.

She wished she could tell Maester Luwin. While Brandon learned from the Three-Eyed Raven, she and Meera listened to stories from the last of the Children of the Forest. What she wouldn’t have given to tell Maester Luwin a lot of things - and Old Nan: the Children were not gone, and dragons had come into the world again.

Bran had seen them.

While Bran was tutored by the Three-Eyed Raven in green-seeing, the Children trained her, and Meera, using staff and spear, using throwing-knives with lethal precision. Small, tactile blades of dragonglass. Maester Luwin had called it _obsidian_ , and he had a link of it on his heavy chain. The frightened, brave Night’s Watch boy Samwell Tarly had given Larra her first dagger; it had been left at the Fist of the First Men, the last place wights had been seen in vast numbers… She learned how it was that the White Walkers could be killed by it…the origins of the White Walkers themselves… A weapon, created by the Children…to wipe out the First Men.

The Long Night had broken into a new dawn, but the Night King had not died: He had slept.

And now he had awoken.

And they waited. Here, under the weirwood, where the ancient magic of the Children protected them. The Night King could not enter, and nor could his legions of wights.

As Bran learned to embrace his visions, even steer them, she and Meera sparred, and tried to forget their hunger, their dread. The helplessness. They tried to keep their spirits up, in this desolate place, for Hodor’s sake, if not their own. All the way from Winterfell, she had carried the small doeskin pouch that opened into an embroidered game-board, which her twin-brother Jon had gifted her on their fourteenth name-day; they played the game with pieces made from carved bone, bear-fangs, polished conkers and interesting pebbles they had picked up along their journey.

It kept Hodor content: He played that game for hours on end, and she could believe he had no cares in the world, watching him play with the Children, Summer curled up beside him, his great head resting in Hodor’s lap. Sometimes he let Hodor scratch behind his ears and pet his shaggy pelt.

Other times, like now, Summer stood at the entrance to the caves, his breath hot on her neck as she squatted in the snow and watched. They watched for his sister. Summer and Last Shadow: She had sent her dire-wolf into the wilderness… A wild thing should be free.

That was what the wildlings had told them. The small family, all that was left of a clan that descended from the First Men, too proud to unite with the crow who flew down from the wall and became King beyond it. They had tried to convince her, convince Bran and Jojen and Meera, even simple Hodor, that south was the only way: North was death.

Sometimes she wondered whether they had made it to the Wall, but couldn’t bear to ask the Raven.

She knew she would never forget their faces. Nor their kindness, in this desolate place. What little they had, they had shared, against all their instincts for survival, contradicting every story she had ever heard growing up. She hoped they had opportunity to barter her brother’s name for their passage south; it was all she could give them.

Because the Wall was all that stood between the living and the dead.

She wondered where Last Shadow was; and whether Jon had made it back to Castle Black.

Outside the eerie keep that echoed with the screams and whimpers of abused women, she had watched him fight as the snow fell - yards from him, she had almost bitten off her own tongue to stop from screaming for him.

 _Her_ Jon. Her twin-brother. The brother she never thought to see again, so close she could see the sweat blinding him as he fought Night’s Watch mutineers. She’d thought, _He needs a haircut_. And he’d grown his whiskers out. He had looked exhausted, and older than she remembered - and so like Father and Uncle Benjen it made her heart ache.

Walking away from Jon was the hardest thing she had ever done.

But it was necessary. Whatever she had to do to keep her little brothers alive, she had done. Nothing else mattered. And that meant she had had to make some terrible decisions.

There was the softest rustle behind her, and her hand curled around the obsidian dagger tucked into her belt. The Children and Meera always left their weapons at the entrance to the caves, but she could not sleep without hers. If they had to move quickly, she wanted the assurance that she had _something_ to defend herself or hunt with… She had been caught out before; and Maester Luwin always said she was a quick learner.

It was Leaf. Nut-brown skin dappled like a fawn, vines and leaves woven into her strange hair, nimble and elegant with three fingers tipped with claws black as her obsidian spear, with large ears that heard more than Summer’s, and keen amber-green eyes that had watched the ages pass. One of the last of the Children of the Forest. Her songs in the True Tongue had made them weep, even though they couldn’t understand the words. In translating, they discovered Larra’s gift for languages; the Children had been teaching her words and phrases, _songs_.

“Are we to have another lesson?” she asked hopefully.

“The Three-Eyed Raven wishes to speak with you,” said Leaf, in her gentle voice like a summer breeze soughing through fresh leaves. Behind her, Larra could see Meera, waiting patiently.

“Has Bran eaten anything?” Larra asked.

“More than you,” Meera replied, and Larra gazed out over the brutal, unforgivingly beautiful landscape. She would never forget the awing beauty of the true North. She sighed. She was starting to forget what hunger was; she was clinging to the memories of what being warm felt like.

“More blood-stew,” she sighed grimly, but not ungratefully. The stew the Children made was all that sustained them, thickened with barley and onions and chunks of meat. If not the stew, they subsisted on hundreds of kinds of mushrooms, or the blind white fish the Children plucked from the black river, with cheese and milk from the goats that shared the hidden cramped warrens.

What she wouldn’t give for an apple. Blackberry and apple pie with buttery pastry and lashings of fresh custard.

They were not starved here, but it was not their home; and the Children were wary of her.

“I like to imagine I’m sitting at my Father’s table, during a name-day feast, eating all my favourites,” Meera smiled, though it barely touched her eyes. They kept up appearances for Hodor’s sake, and because Bran needed no other excuses to be petulant and aggressive; together, they were allowed to be angry, to be frightened, and _fraught_. They didn’t have to hide from each other. Meera could grieve Jojen; and she could fret for Rickon, leagues away with a wildling woman who looked upon him like a son. But she and Meera also buoyed each other; they stopped the other from sinking into melancholy, from drowning in her dread and despair.

How long before Bran became like the Three-Eyed Raven? Able to witness everything that happened in the world, and remain wholly disconnected from it. The Three-Eyed Raven saw every tragedy and yet felt no grief; witnessed delight, yet felt no joy.

The Three-Eyed Raven had been waiting for them. For Bran.

Larra had merely helped Bran get here.

She wondered what the Three-Eyed Raven wanted with her.

He was easy to find, of course; he never moved. He and the tree were one: The bleached roots spread and twisted from the cavern ceiling like an eerie chandelier, the cave larger than the Great Hall at Winterfell, and as cramped as a feast-day, murders of crows cawing incessantly, the uneven ground littered with the bones of the dead - animals, the Children, even giant’s bones, the skeletons of monstrous bats draped from the ceiling… Had there been any natural light within the caves, it would have shed eerie shadows across the walls. But there was not: No starlight, nor daylight penetrated the caves. And nestled within the gnarled roots, on a throne of woven weirwood, was an old man, his vellum-brittle skin colourless, except for the mark on his face. His hair was pure white, and his one eye, when he was not greenseeing with Bran, was blood-red. An albino. And a Man. He was not one of the Children; but he had lived amongst and been attended to by them for years, here under the weirwood, waiting.

The Three-Eyed Raven raised his head slowly when she entered the cave. It was musty and close, ageless bones crunching underfoot, and she felt the fine hairs at the back of her neck prickle with awareness, sensing eyes on her. Not just the Three-Eyed Raven’s, but the birds’ and Hodor’s.

Brandon was looking at her in a way he never had before.

“What has happened?” she asked, frowning, her hand immediately going to her belt, to her dagger. She had lost the one sword they had chanced to steal from Winterfell’s forge, just before reaching the hollow: But she had her new obsidian weapons now, daggers and a hatchet, a double-ended staff, and arrows. As many as she could make, and carry; the Children had taught her. Dragonglass arrowheads; glossy black raven fletching; and shafts of bone-white weirwood.

“Alarra!” Bran panted, staring at her. She frowned, still grasping the dagger at her belt. “I _saw_.”

She shot a glare at the Three-Eyed Raven. “Where did you take him this time?” Brandon always returned from his visions frothing with excitement - or dug into his resentment like a tick: The more the Raven showed him, the more he wanted to see. The more he saw, the longer he wanted to stay. She was losing him. Her brother Brandon Stark, the fearless boy who loved to climb and wanted to be a Kingsguard, he had died the day he fell from the tower; another, angrier boy had woken to find his back broken and his mother gone. And now Brandon Stark was changing once more; the longer he stayed locked inside his mind, inside his visions, the less he was like Bran when he woke.

Bran wanted to stay inside those visions.

At her darkest times, she believed she was here merely to stop Brandon from drowning in them.

And her dark times were dark. At her worst, she missed Jon so fiercely she thought her heart might burst: She resented Bran, for insisting they risk their lives to get here, for being a cripple, for being unable to help her keep Winterfell, or take it back. She hated Theon with a venomous passion that seemed to make her blood boil; and she was angry with her father, and tucked in her furs in this unyielding darkness she wept bitterly for him, and for the mother whose name he had denied her, forever lost - he had never given her a name, not once uttered it, not even to her own children, the only people who had any right to it.

Alarra had always dreaded being forgotten: It broke her heart to be left behind. Now she was the only one left to remember. She had to live with all that had happened to her family.

And she was ashamed to have let them down. She was supposed to look after them, after Brandon and Rickon. She was not a Stark; but Robb had entrusted Winterfell to her, to her and Luwin and Bran… She had sent Rickon off with Osha and Shaggydog and knew she would never see them again; she felt it in her marrow. She had Bran alone; and he was forgetting who he was.

“I have a gift for you,” said the Three-Eyed Raven. For once, his one eye was red, not milky-white: And he reminded her of Ghost, her brother’s albino direwolf.

“A gift, my lord?” she asked sceptically, and the Raven chuckled softly. He had a dry sense of humour, even in this forgotten place; perhaps he was just grateful for the company. His visions were all very well, and as he had told Bran, in them he was always with the brother he loved, the woman he desired - but they never heard him: They existed now only in memory. The world’s memory; and he was its keeper.

Bran remained quiet, and she didn’t understand the look on his face when she glanced at him: As if he did not know her. There was something like… _awe_. No, she did not understand it. And he did not speak, only watched, as several of the Children appeared. One approached Larra, carrying something bulky. In the flickering light of their torches, Larra discerned the shape. It could be only one thing: A sword, complete with scabbard and belt, both of leather, and glinting with the familiar sheen of obsidian.

But it was the pommel of the sword that drew her eye, the eerie light bringing to life a flower of flame crackling silently. A sense of something prickled in the pit of her stomach, recognition or dread or anticipation; it felt… _momentous_.

And she knew instantly…it was not just the sword the Raven was gifting her. The axe had to fall…

But she took the sword all the same, frowning at the pommel, and the fat ruby set into the cross-guard, etched…with a three-headed dragon. The Targaryen sigil.

Carefully, she unsheathed the sword a few inches, and in the torchlight, the ripples and folds of steel imbued with forgotten magic seemed to move like smoke in the shadows. Valyrian steel, bearing the Targaryen sigil.

“Dark Sister,” she whispered. How many times had Arya asked her to read the Targaryen histories to her when she was little? A lost longsword, once wielded by Queen Visenya Targaryen, and with which she had founded the Kingsguard of legend when she cut the Conqueror’s face with it before his protectors could react; wielded by the Dragonknight - always Larra’s favourite; and by Jaehaerys the Wise; by the Spring Prince and the Rogue Prince; and by…

She raised her eyes to the weirwood sharply.

“You are Lord Rivers. Brynden the Bloodraven, Master of Whisperers. You were Hand to King Aerys the First _and_ to King Maekar. You were Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch,” she whispered, stunned, and gasped, realising, “ _Lost_ beyond the Wall…”

“Once, I was Brynden Rivers,” the Raven nodded sadly. “He dwells within me, but I am the Three-Eyed Raven now. There is little room for the Bloodraven.” Her eyes slid to Bran, just for a second: Was that not Bran’s fate? To become what the Three-Eyed Raven was? The apprentice must at some point become master. Would some fool boy one day seek this cave, and find an elderly cripple calling himself the Three-Eyed Raven, last of the great greenseers, to learn all that ever was and is, everything that might ever have been and never was, like stillborn babies?

 _We have to survive that long_ , she thought grimly, and her eyes flicked back to the Three-Eyed Raven.

“You cannot give me this sword,” she whispered, wanting to pass it back to the Children; but they had melted into the shadows. She gazed at the Raven - _Lord Rivers_ , the Bloodraven of her storybooks.

 _A thousand eyes, and one_ … The old nursery rhyme about the notorious Master of Whisperers…the Three-Eyed Raven… Rather, two-eyed… The Bloodraven had lost his eye to his half-brother Bittersteel…

“To my shame, I took the sword with me when I journeyed to the Wall, though it was not mine to keep,” said the Raven. “My brother had bestowed it upon me, you see - I could not bear to part with it.”

Lord Rivers, one of the legitimised Great Bastards of Aegon IV - the _Unworthy_ …

“This is a Targaryen sword - a _king’s_ sword,” Larra said, shaking her head. “I cannot take it.”

“Once, Dark Sister was wielded by a firstborn Targaryen daughter, older sister to a king…now it shall be again,” said the Raven. Larra blinked at him, waiting…the churning sensation in her stomach, the veiled hint… “Dark Sister is yours by birth-right.”

Larra went cold, refusing to listen to what the Bloodraven _hadn’t_ said, but had implied.

“I have no birth-right,” said Larra crisply, honestly. One bastard to another, he should _remember_ … Bastards lived half-lives, no true place in the world except one they managed to carve out for themselves. She had been left behind at Winterfell because she had no place in the world: She could not join the Night’s Watch and earn the honour her birth had denied her due to her gender - nor could she be used by Father to secure the allegiance of his bannermen. They would consider any proposal to wed her an insult, when he had two lawful daughters. She had no place, and no value, and so had been left behind, to raise the children and aid Maester Luwin. And she knew it.

“You do.” It was Bran who spoke, quietly, and it was the gentleness in his tone that made her wary. Brandon was rarely gentle anymore, reminding her more and more of Rickon, the wildest of them all. “Larra…I’ve seen. The Three-Eyed Raven has shown me…so many things - things about the Rebellion, and Father…and your mother. I’ve seen your mother, Larra.”

Her heart stopped, and resentment coiled like a volcanic beast in the pit of her stomach, a baby dragon writhing and clawing and burning her insides. All she had ever wanted, for as long as she could remember wanting anything at all, was her mother’s name.

And _Bran_ had seen her.

All her life, she had wanted to know, _ached_ to learn her name, and whether she had curly hair like theirs or pretty eyes or liked to dance…she had wanted to know if Ned Stark had _loved_ her; she had wanted to know her mother was beautiful, and kind, and clever, and had loved Father. Growing up, it was all she had: That Ned Stark had loved her mother more than he had _ever_ loved Catelyn Tully, that nothing his wife could say or do would ever provoke him to send them away, because he had loved her _so_ very much, and loved her still. It had been a dream, a fantasy, that her parents had loved one another more than they loved anything else in the world.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said quietly.

“But it does,” Bran said gently, and the gentleness unnerved her. “It has always mattered. And that is why Father kept it from you, and from Jon. From everyone.”

Their way was the old way: He who passed the sentence should swing the sword.

A blow was to be dealt: Bran made sure he was the one who delivered it, not some stranger lost to legend. She stared down at the sword, at the whispers of gold and silver glinting amongst the steel grip, the fat glowing ruby set into the rain-guard. It was an exceptional sword.

“Lyanna.” Bran spoke quietly, but she heard the name, and the silence in the cave was deafening. “Your mother was Lyanna Stark.”

She flinched, and anger blistered her insides.

Lyanna Stark, who had died in Dorne after Rhaegar fell at the Trident; whose bones were interred with the ancient Kings of the North. It wasn’t just an empty tomb: Father had brought her home.

He had returned from the war with a corpse and twin babies.

She used to see Father lighting the candles around Lyanna’s statue.

And his rare smiles always faded whenever someone remarked how similar Larra was to the wild Northern beauty famously carried off by the Last Dragon.

She knew the stories; they all did. How could they not? Their House had almost faced extinction. Seven kingdoms had bled because of Rhaegar’s infatuation with a Northern wolf-girl; a dynasty three-centuries in the making had ended with fire and blood.

“If Lyanna was my mother, then you are telling me Ned Stark was not my father.”

“In the ways that matter, Ned Stark was indeed your father,” said the Bloodraven solemnly. “He raised you, educated you, protected you. But the man who fathered you, the man who took Lyanna Stark into his bed…that was the Last Dragon. Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone.”

Larra exhaled a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, feeling hollow.

“Rhaegar never kidnapped Lyanna,” Bran said softly. “He loved her, Larra… He saw the iron beneath her beauty; he saw her strength and her kindness… You remember Meera’s story, about the Knight of the Laughing Tree?”

Larra frowned, glancing over her shoulder at Meera, who lingered, her eyes wide, lips slightly parted. “I remember. At the Tourney of Harrenhall, he defended the honour of Howland Reed.”

“He did. Only it wasn’t a ‘he’; it was Lyanna,” Bran said, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “King Aerys commanded his men to find the mystery knight; Rhaegar found the weirwood shield up a tree…and Lyanna. I saw it. Larra, I saw them. I saw the whole thing - how they met; when Rhaegar crowned her his Queen of Love and Beauty. Rhaegar never kidnapped Lyanna, or raped her: She _chose_ him. He saw exactly who Lyanna was. And he married her.”

“Rhaegar was wed to Elia Martell, Bran, everyone knows that. He carried off Lyanna when he tired of the Dornish princess.”

“Elia was ill; another pregnancy would have killed her. Rhaegar had his marriage to her annulled, he wanted Elia to retire to Dorne,” Bran told her, shaking his head in his urgency. “The High Septon wed Rhaegar and Lyanna in a private ceremony on the Isle of Faces, a ceremony of the Seven, in front of a heart-tree; Rhaegar’s friends witnessed it, Ser Arthur Dayne, all of them. They escorted Rhaegar and Lyanna to Dorne, to the tower Rhaegar called Joy…where you and Jon were born after Rhaegar fell at the Trident.”

Ned Stark had ridden south after lifting the siege of Storm’s End: And when he had found his sister, in a Dornish tower, she had been guarded by the most legendary swordsmen in the Kingsguard for generations. Ser Oswell Whent, Lord Commander Gerold Hightower, and the Sword of the Morning, Ser Arthur Dayne…

Ned had returned from Dorne with his sister’s dead body, and twin babies.

 _Lyanna_ …

The only person Ned Stark would ever have loved enough to sacrifice his honour. To protect _hers_.

To protect _them_.

She had finally learned her mother’s name.

And with it, all hope had died.

She remembered, vividly, sobbing bitterly at the unfairness of Lady Catelyn’s hatred of her; at having no mother. She had sobbed for missing her; ached to know her name; and dreamed of the day her mother would come to Winterfell and take her and Jon away, somewhere they would be safe, and happy, and know a mother’s love.

After years, she finally knew her mother’s name. And she knew that her mother had been dead and gone for decades.

The only hope she had ever had was that one day, she and Jon would meet their mother, and know that they had been loved, even from afar. She would look at them, and her kind eyes would crinkle as she smiled, the way Jon’s and Uncle Benjen’s did, thrilled to see them, relieved they were healthy and strong and good.

Lyanna Stark.

Dead in the tower of Joy years ago. The last of the great casualties of Robert’s Rebellion.

Had she known Rhaegar was already dead, as she laboured to bring Larra and Jon into the world? That Robert had been proclaimed king and all hope was lost for the Targaryen dynasty?

Had she _given up_?

“Why are you telling me this? Why now? Father kept Lyanna’s secret, he kept us safe, what does it matter now?” she asked, and her voice rang around the echoing cavern as she panted, her blood boiling in her veins. Father had always called it the wolf-blood; he had warned her that Lyanna had touch of it, her uncle Brandon more than a touch…

“Because you ought to know…” Bran said, staring at her in that way he never had before. He was truly _looking_ at her, as if he had never seen her before, as if he was looking for something in her face - and had found it. His lips parted. “He _loved_ her. And she loved him.”

“It doesn’t matter. Jon and I - we don’t _matter_ ,” Larra said fiercely. But even she heard the crack in her voice, the desperation.

Father had found Lyanna dying _in her birthing-bed_ in Dorne…and brought his bastard twins back to Winterfell. Because their mother…was dead… Her _mother_.

“But you do,” Bran said softly, staring at her. “You always have. After the Siege of King’s Landing, Father journeyed all the way to Dorne to find Lyanna. She was protected by three of the most lethal Kingsguard to wear the white cloaks in generations… Father told us the story, how many times? But he never told us _all_ of it. But I have seen it. Father found Lyanna, bleeding to death in her birthing-bed, her newborn daughter in her arms as they wrapped her son in his swaddling-cloth.” Larra could not meet his eye; hers burned, as she scowled at the longsword in her hands, too hurt, too devastated by the loss.

Her mother, snatched away from her the moment she learned her name.

“Larra… You were _wanted_ , and by no-one more than Rhaegar and Lyanna,” Bran said firmly. “Rhaegar was gone before you were born, as was Aerys, and Rhaegar’s children by Elia Martell. The Queen was in exile on Dragonstone, expecting her last child, her surviving son still a boy. All Lyanna could do, as she lay dying, was hold you - and make Father promise.”

“Promise to what?” she moaned, heartbroken. If all this was true, and she knew it was, then her father’s life had been more honourable, his death more tragic than anything she had ever heard.

“To protect you. To protect you, and your twin-brother…the heirs to the Iron Throne,” Bran said quietly, and she flinched again. “She was dying, and she was _brave_ , Larra… She made Father swear, she refused to die until he had sworn an oath to her, to protect you. The heir to the Iron Throne; the future of House Targaryen.”

And he had.

Ned Stark had loved his sister more than anything and anyone; more than his own honour.

Even the Dragonknight had never protected his beloved as well as Ned Stark had protected his sister.

He had protected them all their lives; and he had died, protecting his sister’s secret. He had let her die, virtuous and tragic, forever young and beautiful, songs sung of her tragic romance with the brilliant, noble young prince.

But Lyanna _had_ died. And Rhaegar had been murdered at the Trident: His infant son Aegon and daughter Rhaenys had died gruesomely the same night as the Mad King…

With a horrible sense of finality, Larra accepted the devastating truth; that all Bran was telling her was irrefutable.

It all made far too much sense to deny.

Her mother was Lyanna Stark, the wild she-wolf of the North; and her father…the Last Dragon, Prince Rhaegar.

They had never been bastards.

Jon had been born a king.

They had a claim to the Iron Throne. Jon had the _only_ claim to the Iron Throne.

And that frightened her more than any Night King’s army of wights: The dead could only kill them.

“Lyanna lived long enough to name you. Jon she named Aegon, after Rhaegar’s great-grandfather, Aegon the Unlikely… And you, Larra… Lyanna named you for Rhaegar’s mother…Aella…”

“Aella,” she whispered. It sounded foreign on her tongue. Because it was. An old name, a _Valyrian_ name, remnant of a lost culture, the ghost of a lost age. And the name her mother had given her…meant nothing. She was Alarra Snow: The name her _father_ had given her. The name she armoured herself with, the name that at once meant a lack of honour, and freedom - to carve out her own fate.

She unsheathed Dark Sister, the light glinting off the impossibly sharp, smoky blade, rubies glowing.

 _Dark Sister was wielded by a firstborn Targaryen daughter, older sister to a king…now it shall be again_ …

Dark Sister had been forged for a woman-warrior, in the days before the Doom of Valyria, before the Targaryens had occupied the last Valyrian outpost, Dragonstone… A slender blade, expertly forged, exquisitely decorated, but lethal, thirsty for blood, wielded by warrior-queens and heroes…

A Valyrian steel sword, given to a ferocious warrior sister, to protect her brother-king.

She lowered her eyes to the Bloodraven. His ancient face was saddened.

Lord Rivers had gifted her Dark Sister, not just to protect Bran, she knew, or to help in their fight against White Walkers and their legions of the undead…

He had returned the blade to a true Targaryen. If they survived the dead, it fell to Larra to protect her brother, as Queen Visenya had Aegon, with this very blade.

The Bloodraven’s face was sombre, but his eye glittered as he watched her swing Dark Sister from one hand, her wrist like water, practicing thrusts and parries to learn how she weighed in Larra’s hands, the balance beautiful. The blade sang through the still air.

Father had allowed her to learn alongside Robb and Jon and Theon how to wield weapons: He’d told Ser Rodrick that wild girls had to learn to protect themselves. And those who could not wield a blade often died upon them: As a bastard, Larra had been allowed what Lady Catelyn refused Sansa and Arya - the right to defend themselves.

The Bloodraven’s ancient face was alight with admiration and dread as he watched her, and he murmured, “Dark Sister looks as if she were forged for your hand by the gods themselves… She has been idle too long, and has a thirst for blood… May she bring you good fortune, in the wars to come.”


	2. Hold the Door

**Valyrian Steel**

_02_

_Hold the Door!_

* * *

_Hold the door! Hold the door! Hold the door!_

_Holdedoor! Holdedoor! Holdedoor!_

_Holdoor! Holdoor! Holdoor!_

_Hodor! Hodor! Hodor!_

_Hodor… Hodor… Hodor…_

_Hodor…_

Hodor.


	3. White Winds

**Valyrian Steel**

_03_

_White Winds_

* * *

Even months and years later, she could never recall exactly how they made it to the haunted forest, two wraithlike girls laden with furs and weapons, dragging a sled and a broken boy on the cusp of manhood: Headfirst into the worst storm they had experienced in all their wanderings of the true North. The white winds had snatched at their furs and torn at their exposed skin, stinging where ice had frozen in the air, pelting them, the snow gentling each sting as flakes the size of daisies swirled around them, blinding them. They whispered against her skin like forbidden kisses.

All she could remember, after turning her back on her sweet giant, was that her eyelashes had frozen.

It took days to realise it was because she had been crying.

Hodor’s fate battered her mind, attempting to turn it inside-out, and grief at Summer’s sacrifice threatened to overwhelm her, aching for Last Shadow, sorrow for the last of the Children meeting their fates so valiantly, uselessly, to give them precious _time_ , in a place where time had not existed for millennia, made her hollow - and angry. Grief and terror and _hope_ kept her moving.

Hope was the only thing more powerful than her dread.

In the snowstorm of the Night King’s creation, they did not dare let go the harness lashing them to Bran’s sled: To let go was to lose one another. And to fall behind was to be left behind: They could not afford to stop. They would never meet again: Unless it was on opposite sides of the inevitable war. The only war that mattered. The war for the dawn. For _life_.

When people asked her, years later, how they had escaped the Night King and his army of wights, her answer was simple, and confounding: _I put one foot in front of the other_.

There was no magic to it. There had been no miracles, no heroes but a simple-minded giant who held the door. Just her and Meera. And they had simply refused to give in: They marched, and they dragged Bran, his eyes still milky from visions, and they fought against the howling white winds and raging snows, not daring to look back and see how close the army of the dead was. In the snows, they couldn’t even _smell_ the dead, and that was something. Meera had noticed the cold: Larra had noticed the _smell_.

They had each killed a White Walker, with weapons of obsidian: But they had paid for their escape with the lives of Hodor and Summer, Lord Bloodraven, Leaf, and the other Children. The last of their kind.

The wind almost knocked them off their feet, snatching at loose curls, slapping and slicing their exposed skin, and her bones ached to the marrow; her legs shook violently, and she was sure her feet bled. They were weak. Weaker than she had suspected.

Had the Night King been sated enough by the murder of the Three-Eyed Raven, by the Children, to not give chase? His generals were one thing: But Larra had looked the Night King in the face, and known she looked upon an ancient god from a forgotten age. A god of Death.

She could not defeat Death. She could only outrun it, for as long as she had strength in her body to put one foot in front of the other.

They weaved through the trees, the haunted forest echoing with howls and screams as the winds tore at barren branches, saplings groaning and creaking as they bowed in the gale, and Meera struggled, and lost her footing. The sled lurched, and Larra panted, tugging.

They hadn’t stopped for hours; but the dawn would not come. The night…the night chased them…and its King had sent his soldiers after them. She dared not stop, dared not look back.

“We have to keep going!!” she shouted, tugging sharply.

“I can’t!!!”

“ _You must_!”

Whimpering, devastated and exhausted, knowing that to stop was death, Meera struggled to her feet; they tugged at the sled, and freed it from a hidden gnarl of tree-roots. She saw the look on Meera’s face just as they heard it: The first snarl, carried on the wind. They were sheltered from the worst of the elements amongst the trees, finally, blessedly sheltered, but even the woods would not stop the dead, any more than the shore could stop the sea.

“I’m sorry!” Meera cried, her face crumpling, as she panted and shook with exhaustion, guarding Bran with her body. His eyes were still milky-white, sightless - seeing _everything_.

_For how long?_

“Meera, take Bran and go!” she shouted over the wind.

“ _What about you?_ ” Meera screamed, and her face fell, her eyes widening in horror as she gazed past Larra.

The dead. The sight of them sucked the breath from her lungs, and filled her with dread…but worse, worse than the decayed corpses wielding broken weapons, tearing ceaselessly through the storm…the lone White Walker. Not the King; one of his long-haired generals. Armoured and armed, his pace was slow and unyielding as a glacier, the wights all the more chaotic around him for his stillness.

“Meera…your bow,” she wheezed, and Meera reached for it, nocking the first obsidian arrow.

They would die: But they would _fight_.

She refused to give in. From the moment the Ironborn took Winterfell, her sole purpose had been to survive: And to survive, because she had to protect her brothers. She lived for them. They gave her purpose. Protecting Bran was all she had: And she would fight to her death to protect him. With her last breath, she would defy anyone who attempted to harm him.

As the wights descended, she unsheathed her new sword to wield it in battle for the very first time. She was exhausted to her marrow, every muscle burning…but she had been trained for this. For exhaustion, and hunger, and desperation…

 _Those without swords still die upon them_ , Father had once told Ser Rodrick, who hadn’t wanted to train a woman for war, bastard though she was. But she was a daughter of the North: They were made of tempered steel and unyielding ironstone.

Arrows whistled past, wights stopping in their tracks, but the White Walker strode on, his face ice-white and still, his blue eyes glowing in the half-light.

Dark Sister felt as if she had been forged for Larra alone, an extension of her arm, and the blade sang through the air. She killed one, two, another, and another - she fought for survival, her exhaustion forgotten, blood flowing through her veins like liquid fire, fierce and good. Her blood was up: It was all she had. The burning desire to fight - to _live_. It was all she had, and it was not enough, but she fought. As Meera emptied her quiver, Larra cut down more wights, keeping them at bay.

But there were too many.

Too many, and too fast. Unrelenting.

A White Walker before her eyes. She thought of Old Nan’s stories. And then she fought, and no other thought entered her mind but anticipating the next strike, and avoiding each blow. She was too exhausted, too weak to block; but fear made her nimble.

Dark Sister came alive in her hands; her body moving as if without thought. The Children called it dancing.

She danced with a White Walker.

Larra heard the wights, heard Meera’s bow singing, the crunch of shattering wights as dragonglass killed whatever magic animated them, she heard the winds howling, but it was the howling of a direwolf that cost her - almost everything.

The familiar howl of Last Shadow filled her with _strength_ \- with hope, with memories, with determination - fuelled by love - to _survive_ ; for half a second, she was distracted. A giant black direwolf leapt out of nowhere, over Bran, bundling into three wights advancing on him.

Last Shadow. She had _grown_ \- and she was not alone. More wolves appeared out of nowhere, leaping out of the snows at wights, tearing them to pieces, and someone astride a great black horse swung a flaming thurible on a long chain at any wight within range as the horse galloped around the trees.

But she lost focus, her arms shook with the impact of the blow she just blocked in time - she stumbled, overbalanced in the snowy terrain, and screamed as the Walker stabbed at her with his ice-white blade. _Seven hells!_

It was a scream of fury - and pain. Had he broken ribs? Her breath came so painfully, she thought so; she would be bruised.

But she was not dead. Not yet.

The White Walker showed no emotion, only lethal purpose. He was a sword in the storm.

She bared her teeth and screamed in fury as she clamped her arm down over the white blade still tangled in her furs, raising Dark Sister to use the flaming pommel and break the brittle ice-blade in half. She fell back as if to fade - and screamed as she leapt forwards, knocking his broken blade out of the way to plunge Dark Sister deep into his heart.

Larra looked into his glowing vivid-blue eyes and saw nothing. No emotion, no desire, no _life_. She did not smell a putrid corpse, as the stench of the wights made her eyes water even in the storm; only ice. _Cold_.

The sound of ice creaking and cracking seemed to quieten the storm raging around them; she heard every fissure as they appeared on his snow-white skin, bluish-silver and white, awing. She clenched her eyes shut as she fell to the ground, ice shattering, raining down around her as she landed heavily in the snow.

Panting, her side agony to her, she raised her head, fingers tight around Dark Sister’s grip, wary for the next attack, and gasped, watching, stunned, as the wights dropped where they were, disintegrating, dust on the wind, rusted weapons dropping into the snow with piles of old bones and mouldy furs. For a second, she only stared, taking it all in: Then she realised. The wights had met their true death with the defeat of the White Walker who commanded them, had maybe created them.

Panting, she collapsed against the snow, turning onto her back, hissing in pain, staring dazedly into the endless grey-white sky, bare trees waving and groaning in the wind, snow flurries eddying around her. She blinked, and focused, and smiled humourlessly at the ravens clinging stubbornly to the branches. _Wherever there are wolves, there are ravens_ , Maester Luwin used to tell her.

The shrouded man on horseback trotted over, the stench of his sweating horse acrid on the crisp air, looping the coils of his chain carefully, the thrurible extinguished. His voice tickled her memory when he said, “On your feet…the dead do not tire.”

Last Shadow snuffled as she prowled over, bigger than Larra ever remembered, and gave Larra’s ear a lick, tucking her nose under Larra’s chin for a moment, whining softly, and Larra might have burst into tears of relief had she the energy.

“Shadow,” she wheezed, and her dire-wolf, her companion and sister, chuffed softly. Intense heat roiled off her in waves, and the familiar, comforting scent of wolf swept memories of better times through Larra’s mind. She knotted her fingers in Shadow’s impossibly thick jet fur, and the enormous direwolf gently pulled her to her feet. Her legs shook violently, her arms felt like dead weights, bruised from the impact of fighting the White Walker, and her side protested, in absolute agony…but she was alive.

And Meera was alive. And Brandon was alive.

Meera was hurriedly gathering as many arrows as she could reclaim from the fallen wights, already disintegrating in the vicious winds; Shadow guided Larra to the sled, to Bran, whose eyes were dark once more. He stared at her unblinkingly, simply reaching to lift the harness Larra had fashioned under the weirwood, fastened to the sled. She had fit it to Summer. She had designed the sled, crafted from dead weirwood branches, so that Bran could skim across the snow and ice in comfort, using reins to guide Summer, who had been large enough to draw the sled like horses did wagons. It was supposed to ensure that Bran had a means of transportation he was not completely reliant on other people for; but there was capacity for someone to stand behind, and take the reins. They hadn’t time to test the harness and the sled together.

Last Shadow padded in front of the sled; Larra sheathed Dark Sister before securing the harness around her direwolf. There was no blood on the blade; no indication at all she had slain a White Walker, a monster from legend. Shadow stood still, waiting patiently, as Larra adjusted the harness: Summer had been smaller than his sister, and Larra fastened the buckles with stiff, bruised fingers. Meera helped her right the sled, Bran jostled inside his furs, and Larra wondered, fleetingly, whether Bran had called the wolves to him. He was a skinchanger, far stronger than Larra - she could change skins with wolves, but wouldn’t dare try and see through another man’s eyes; the Children had taught her, making her practice every day. Skinchanging left Bran’s body vulnerable while he inhabited an animal’s skin: It left his mind vulnerable to the death of his host. It was a dangerous and erratic power; Larra didn’t trust it.

The shrouded man called to them, but the sound was lost on the wind; as Larra stepped on the footboards, he helped Meera onto his horse, and started galloping away. South. Always south now.

They couldn’t have outrun the dead without Shadow, without the mounted stranger.

But they did. Somehow, they did.

Theon Greyjoy used to talk about sailing. Odd that she thought about him then, after everything: She had only thought about Theon in anger ever since he took Winterfell, took her brothers’ home from them, betrayed Robb’s trust. Theon used to talk about the sea. Pyke. The Ironborn; piracy. _Freedom_. She imagined sailing the high seas felt a lot like skimming across the oceans of snow and ice at high speed, exhilarating and _fast_ , breathless - and a little painful, trepidation niggling at the pit of her stomach as she held on to the handle-bar and gritted her teeth against the cries of pain that threatened to burst from her, the snow and ice biting her face, her legs like fresh-forged lead, still burning. The White Walker hadn’t killed her, but she knew her own body: He had done her some damage, in the act of stabbing at her, if not actually skewering her.

She clung onto the sled, not daring relax her grip, and focused on nothing but Bran, and Meera, and their cloaked companion - and their honour-guard of direwolves.

Last Shadow had found a _pack_. At least twenty direwolves, of different colours and sizes, different ages. Even a couple of pups, close to their mother. Impossibly, she remembered Shadow that small, gangly and excitable, loping through the snow. And Shadow was in her element now, in the true North, amongst a pack. The direwolves formed a protective ring around them, guarding them on all sides, the more vulnerable wolves inside the circle, next to the sled and the horse that was unfazed by their nearness. To see a true wolf-pack in nature, in its element, embracing them as their own, vulnerable pups to be protected…it was extraordinary.

With the cloaked stranger on horseback, and Shadow pulling the sled, they covered a great distance at speed. She wondered how Shadow had known where she was…whether she had called to her across so great a distance, whether their bond truly was as strong as she had always believed. The Children had been teaching her, strengthening her warg abilities…like a muscle, the more she used it, the stronger it became, though without Shadow she had tried to strengthen her bond with Summer. Sometimes she dreamed through Shadow’s eyes; the Children had encouraged it.

They put as much distance between them and the dead as the animals could provide; but even direwolves tired eventually, especially when they were hungry, and the cloaked stranger’s horse was not a Dornish stallion, bred for stamina.

Eventually, they had to decide to stop, to rest. They all needed it; and the wolves took opportunity to hunt what little could be found in the snows. Sheltered by trees, the cloaked stranger had found them a derelict hut, erected by wildlings and abandoned - possibly they were with Mance Rayder, or perhaps they fought for the Night King. Either way, the empty home was a haven: It shielded them, for a few precious hours, from the perils of a night that was getting steadily more dangerous, a night that refused to end. They enjoyed a couple of hours of daylight, and that was their lot: They could not get South soon enough.

Every muscle in her body wound so tight she feared they might snap her bones, Larra inched off the footboards of the sled. She had thought she knew what pain was: She had been educated in their flight from the Night King. It was all she could do to keep hold of the handle-bar, and the reins, to keep herself upright. Her face felt as if it had been flayed by the snow and ice, and if she kept her nose, she would be surprised - and grateful. Meera grimaced in pain as she dismounted, with the cloaked stranger’s help: It had been a long time since either of them had ridden. Together, they manoeuvred the sled into the shelter, and Meera groaned as she sank onto the snow-strewn ground, where pine-needles had once formed a carpet, instead of rushes. Precariously, Larra leaned against the wall of the shelter; she could no more bend her legs to sprawl on the ground as Meera had than she could perform twenty cartwheels for her amusement. Inch by inch, knowing she would pay for it when they started off again, she let her muscles relax, slowly, agonisingly.

In the time it took to sit on the ground with her legs outstretched and shaking, gripping her side and fearful of examining herself for injury, her mind slowly settling from the anxiousness that had plagued her since smelling the dead in the Children’s caves, the wolves had disappeared…and returned, only a few hours later, herding a young, frightened elk. A gift. The gift of food; the gift of _life_.

They left the kill for the cloaked stranger - and waited patiently, prowling around the shelter like guards, lifting their noses to the wind, communicating constantly: The little pups had to be kept in line by the older ones, and Larra took the time to watch them, learning each of the direwolves, and Last Shadow amongst them. She was among the largest and strongest of the direwolves; there were others, a russet-coloured one that made Larra’s stomach hurt, thinking of Robb the last time she had seen him, with snow melting in his auburn hair, bearded, a man before his time, off to war…

It was the cloaked stranger who handled the elk, carving meat for them to roast over a spit, enough for a meal and enough to tuck into the sled for later; packed with snow, it would not spoil for a while.

When he had taken their cut, the wolves set in; and Larra watched the social structure of the pack, the family of direwolves Last Shadow had been adopted into. Born one of seven pups to a dead mother, Last Shadow’s eyes had already been open, she had been fending for her little-brother Ghost, an albino rejected by the others… Now she was enormous, larger than a pony and elegant, ferocious - wily. She always had been the canniest of the direwolves. Lady had been gentle; Grey Wind was unsettling in his swiftness and purpose, clever; Ghost was quiet and unnerving as his name implied, but ferocious and deeply loyal to Jon; Nymeria had Arya’s mixture of impishness and danger; Summer had been intuitive; and Shaggydog was the wildest, the untamed wolf, the feral monster men feared - with good reason. But Last Shadow…she had grown up in the wilds of the wolfswood, hunting by Larra’s side, or protecting the babies - she had put Shaggydog in his place, and from the very beginning had nurtured her siblings, bringing Ghost food, licking Summer’s muzzle as he cried for broken Bran.

But she had never been at home at Winterfell, the same way Larra had known she was not truly wanted, was despised and even dreaded by her father’s wife - she feared Jon might steal Robb’s inheritance of the North, did her level best to place a wedge between her lawful children and her husband’s bastards… _Look at us now_ , Larra thought, not for the first time: There was no difference to them, now. They had no home, no lands, no titles. Just their lives, and it was their lives that mattered to her. She wondered what Catelyn Tully would think, her precious boys left in the care of her husband’s bastard daughter… That the bastard she despised had kept her sons safe where her husband’s bannermen, with all their armies, had failed to.

She watched Last Shadow: Now, she took precedent. The smaller wolves waited, quivering with anticipation, but it was Last Shadow, the largest female, black as night and as dangerous, who fed from the elk first, with the hulking male, a grey and cream male with piercing amber eyes and scars on his muzzle, the size of her favourite mare… As the meat cooked over a small fire, and the smell roused a dozing Meera as nothing else in this world might, Larra watched the wolves… Even in the storm, even as the night grew longer, they lived… They hunted, and they fed, and they thrived, and she couldn’t help wonder whether any of the young pups in the pack were Last Shadow’s. She didn’t know how long they had lingered beneath the weirwood, just that Bran had become a man while they were there.

There were a few jet-black pups with amber and snow-blue eyes, one of which was bold enough to lift its nose their way, and pounce on her boot, playful as she remembered Last Shadow being, delighted to find a sister, a friend. The russet-coloured wolf Larra had seen before, an elegant female with piercing eyes, prowled closer, its muzzle red with blood, watching Larra shrewdly, before batting at the pup with her paw, nudging the pup back toward the elk, and their dinner. The she-wolf stared at Larra, steaming in the cold, eyes piercing, cunning; she raised her muzzle to scent the air, scent them, and Larra remained still as the strange direwolf inched closer, finally scenting and licking her face, lowering her nose to sniff and scent her furs. The elk-blood had frozen in her fur but her rough tongue was hot as she licked Larra’s aching face.

The she-wolf cocked her head at Bran thoughtfully, scented Meera, and loped back over to the elk to growl at one of the larger pups so the little ones could sneak up and tear some meat away. The direwolves weren’t going to leave anything of the carcass, not this far North, not in these winter storms.

The cloaked stranger pulled his knife, and started to carve the cooked meat from the spit. Succulent, dripping with fat, the juicy meat had Larra’s mouth watering.

The stranger crouched in front of her, the hood pulled low over his eyes, to offer her the meat.

“That Walker’s blade should’ve skewered you.” That voice again, rich and mournful and understated - she knew it; she _knew_ she knew it. She just couldn’t place it. Memories flirted with her bone-deep tiredness in the back of her mind: She wriggled in her furs, and finally got free of them, just long enough to show the stranger what she wore beneath: A chain-mail vest made entirely of obsidian. Tiny rings, thousands of them, hand-carved, smooth and beautiful, sewn on to a vest of bear-hide using direwolf hairs - _Summer’s_ shed hairs.

In the little hut, the vest shimmered and came alive in the firelight - as if she was wearing dragonscales…

She caught Meera’s eye, and hurriedly bundled herself back under her furs, Bran’s revelation about her parentage still too fresh, too painful a wound.

The stranger laughed.

It was more of a _chuff_ , something soft and wild, unpractised - something _wolflike_.

Larra looked up sharply, into the stranger’s hooded eyes.

“ _Uncle Benjen_!”


	4. Lost

**Valyrian Steel**

_04_

_Lost_

* * *

Her aches and pains were forgotten as she flung herself at her uncle. _Benjen_.

The last time they had embraced, he had arrived late after a hard day’s ride, flying down from the Wall: Grim Benjen with his long face and handsome nose, his rich solemn voice, her heroic uncle who had committed his life to a cause greater than his own, a ranger and hardy warrior.

Their hero - hers, and Jon’s.

A rare visitor at Winterfell who had always treated them with kindness and respect: They had admired him with something close to idolatry, anticipated his visits, and regretted his return to the Wall, to the true North, ranging in the unknowable wilderness, back then only shaped in their minds by Old Nan’s stories - and Benjen’s… He had left out some crucial details…

Jon had followed their uncle’s footsteps to the Wall, and beyond it; Larra had been bitterly heartbroken to be left behind, with no place in the world, left to look after her brothers - little had she known, then, that she too would follow in her uncle’s footsteps, trudging all the way to the Wall and beyond it, dragging her stubborn, crippled brother.

Uncle Benjen.

He had been thought lost, lost beyond the Wall, lost to the true North, with no word, like so many hundreds of thousands of nameless, forgotten men who took the black, highborn and low alike lost to the ravaging blizzards of time and memory. Their pain, unknown, their sacrifice, unrewarded, ignored. Futile.

She had seen the true enemy. The winter of her family’s warning. The entirety of Westeros knew it: Starks were always right in the end. _Winter is coming_ , indeed.

They had endured the winter, and survived: But it chased at their heels like starving direwolves. They were an impossibility - two waiflike girls and a crippled boy, somehow they had survived the true North and its most horrific dangers - besides the dead, and the generals of the army of the night, chasms and glaciers and hidden fissures, mangy snowcats and the worst of the Free Folk… And here, another impossibility: Uncle Benjen, _alive_.

Or close enough to it.

She squeezed Benjen with her tired, thin body, as tight as she could, her heart breaking. _Uncle Benjen_. He didn’t expect it; she wondered when he had last been embraced, by anyone, because he froze…and thawed, tucking his arms around, strong as tempered steel.

Slowly, almost as if he were ashamed, Benjen lowered his head, raising his blackened, heavy hands to drop his hood, and carefully unwound the cowl around his face, revealing high cheeks savaged by frostbite, dark eyes shadowed with grief, lips blue and cracked. His skin was paler than snow, with an unhealthy greenish-grey tint that might have reminded her of the Children…if she wasn’t acquainted with rotting bodies, disintegrating skin…

Uncle Benjen was not dead…but he was not truly alive, either. Much as she and Meera and Bran and Hodor had been for however long they lingered beneath the great heart-tree. Halfway between death and life. They were closer to life than Uncle Benjen, she could _see_ it…

Sadness filled her, replacing everything else.

Benjen was _altered_.

She glanced at her brother. Bran. The last time they had seen Benjen, the King had arrived at Winterfell to ask their father to become Hand of the King…had divided their family irrevocably. Benjen had flown down from the Wall, and taken Jon back with him. Father had taken their sisters south… Larra had been left behind, with three brothers - one overwhelmed, one wounded, and one wild… Larra had been a wild girl herself, her back a tangle of ruby ribbons from Queen Cersei, half-feral and furious; Bran had been a tiny broken boy, sweet-faced, kind and full of warmth. She remembered that boy…in this desolate place, Benjen must remember them so vividly it hurt; she knew her own memories shone as vibrantly as any of her paintings in comparison to the barren icy wastes of the North.

If Benjen had changed, so had they.

She wondered if it hurt. If looking at them hurt, the same way looking at Benjen hurt - and the cramping worry deep in her belly, the slow dull ache that strengthened as she thought of Jon. Jon, fighting wildings in the rain by the abandoned windmill; Jon, outside the keep of wailing women… Why had he been wearing a wildling’s furs at the tower, only to be back in black at the keep?

Did he know Benjen was still beyond the Wall?

Had _Bran_ known?

Bran’s eyes were dark, and they lingered curiously on Benjen’s frostbitten face.

But Benjen’s eyes lingered on Larra. He looked at her…the way she always remembered, whenever he visited Winterfell…as if it was the first and last time he would ever see her face, and had never seen anything he wanted to gaze upon more than her face…

She realised…in her face, he saw his _sister_. The sister he had lost, the sibling he had been closest to. Lyanna.

His sister. Her _mother_.

Their secret.

Ned’s, and her mother’s, and perhaps Uncle Benjen’s, too.

Benjen had been barely Bran’s age when the Rebellion began - Lyanna, only sixteen when she had died…giving birth to her twin children raised at Winterfell as her brother’s bastards…

Benjen had not been wearing the black then. He had been…the Stark in Winterfell. _There must always be a Stark in Winterfell_...

Benjen had been the Stark in Winterfell when Father returned from the Rebellion with twin babies… Lyanna’s babies…

Every time he flew down from the Wall, Benjen sought out Jon and Larra. He always had a smile for her, _always_. He had always, from her earliest memory, held her face tenderly in his large, scarred hands, learning every curve and plane of her face.

She wondered how alike she was to her mother…her _mother_ …

Benjen was the only person living who could tell her anything about her mother…and her _father_ …

It explained why he had always been so kind to them, eager to learn even the most mundane details of their lives, smiling at Larra’s paintings and embroidery and her bow, sparring with them in the yard - a seasoned Ranger of the Night’s Watch playing with sparring-swords! Patient and implacable, that was her memory of Benjen, solemn as Father and kind, as troubled by his responsibilities to the Watch as Father was by his to the North…

If Benjen looked at her and saw Lyanna, then Larra looked at Benjen and saw Jon. Saw _Father_. It hurt, worse than any hunger. She was too exhausted to weep, but inside, she was in agony.

She disentangled herself from her uncle, stepping back, eyes burning as she gazed at him, overwhelmed by the memories that swept through her, searing like wildfire, warming her from the inside out.

“The last letter Jon wrote us said you’d been lost beyond the Wall,” said Bran, in his new soft, careful voice. She remembered his easy laughter and quick chatter like a squirrel, teasing Arya and cooing to baby Rickon, talking with Summer before he had been named, before Bran had fallen…

That little boy was gone: So was the brooding, isolated young man Larra remembered as her twin: And this was not Uncle Benjen who visited Winterfell.

This was the First Ranger of the Night’s Watch.

Grief and remorse flickered across Benjen’s face, his jaw working as he fiddled clumsily with his gloves.

After a moment, he spoke hesitantly, his voice soft as Bran’s but a thousand times more sorrowful. “I led a ranging party, deep into the North, to find White Walkers… _They_ found _us_. A White Walker stabbed me in the gut with a sword of ice…left me there to die, to turn… The Children found me, stopped the Walkers’ magic from taking hold.”

“How?” Meera breathed, gazing at Benjen with eyes glinting wetly in the firelight.

“The same way they made the Walkers in the first place,” Benjen sighed, turning his sharp dark eyes on Bran. “You saw it yourself.”

“Dragonglass,” Bran said, shifting awkwardly in his sled, his expression pinched. “A shard of dragonglass, plunged into your heart.”

They stared at Benjen, at his chest, buried beneath layers of wool and matted fur. The Children were likely gone from their world forever, but here a relic remained, an echo of their last act, lingering in the world, continuing their work.

“Why did they save you?” Meera asked, her face haunted, remembering Jojen. Jojen, whom they had abandoned, whose own sister had delivered him mercy in the snows as wights descended upon him, Jojen, whom the Children could not - would not - save, not when Bran’s life was at risk as they fought to protect Jojen. Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven. The Children had not saved Jojen, but they had found Benjen dying in the snows far from the great heart-tree…

Benjen glanced at Larra. “To the Children, it was but yesterday they united with the First Men to stop the White Walkers…it was Brandon who raised the Wall, who built Winterfell, and it is his blood that runs through our veins,” Benjen murmured; every Northman grew up on tales of Bran the Builder, high-borns and bastards alike. “Brandon wielded the magic of the Children to reinforce the Wall, to stop any White Walker or soldier they created from passing into the world of Men.”

“The Children are gone,” Larra murmured, Leif’s sacrifice still too fresh a wound. She had spent months, years, training with Leif, with the Children, learning to dance as they did with their weapons of weirwood and dragonglass, learning their songs.

“But their songs are not,” Benjen said, gazing meaningfully at Larra. “And magic is not gone from this world.”

“But - _oh_ ,” Larra breathed, staring at her uncle, her tired eyes widening with realisation. The Children had taught her their songs - their _spells_ , their magic…

All magic was gone from the world…except dragons.

And those who rode them.

 _Valyrians_.

An ancient race of Men whose blood was steeped in magic - kept pure for centuries in the very last of them, by the incestuous marriages of the Targaryen dynasty, wedding brother to sister for centuries to preserve the purity of their blood…their _magical_ blood…

Blood that ran through Larra’s veins - and Jon’s…

They were the last of them.

The last of the Targaryens.

The last of an ancient race with _magic_ flowing in her veins…a Targaryen with the blood of the First Men, the blood of Bran the Builder, who had wielded the magic of the Children against the Night King…

Leif had told her that strong magic protected Winterfell, magic that was lost to the world…except to her. And Jon.

They were children of the North, of ancient Valyria.

They were children of ice and fire.

And the _song_ … The songs the Children had taught her, they were not just songs…they were _spells_ , the magic of the Children, preserved in Larra’s memory, just as the history of the world was preserved in Bran…

Bran was knowledge, now, living memory in a man’s form… But Larra and Jon…they were _magic_ made flesh…

The Three-Eyed Raven had tutored Bran… The Bloodraven was gone: But the Three-Eyed Raven lived on. Just as there was always a king, there was always a Three-Eyed Raven. No sooner had one breathed its last than the next took a gasp and plunged on.

The Children were gone - but they had passed on their knowledge to Larra the only way they knew how - in song.

Leif had made Larra memorise one particular song… She had called it Larra’s song…she had called it _a song of ice and fire_ …

Confronted with the horror that was the Night King and his army, it was an oddly comforting thought, realising that it was not only Bran that the Three-Eyed Raven and the Children wanted to get safely North to the great weirwood.

They had needed Larra, too.

Her time had not been wasted, deep beneath the tree.

She had been waiting, and watching, but she had also been learning - without ever knowing the significance of what she had learned, until now.

The Children were gone; but they had left their last, best hope for the future of Man with Larra…

With her, and with Jon. The same blood ran through his veins as hers. Northman, Valyrian: Stark, Targaryen.

Bran the Builder had stopped the Night King once.

They would again, for the last time.

They had to: There was no other option. How could they let him cover all the world in shadow?

Benjen nodded slowly, knowing she had understood him. He turned to Brandon, the last Stark child named for their legendary ancestor.

“You are the Three-Eyed Raven now,” Benjen sighed sadly. “You must help Larra and Jon, in every way you can. The three of you…you are all the world of Man has left.”

“I didn’t have time to learn, I can’t control anything!” Bran said plaintively, and there was something like amusement and sorrow glinting in Benjen’s dark eyes.

“You must learn to. Before the Night King comes,” Benjen told him gently. “One way or another, he will find his way into the world of Men. And when he does, you three shall be there, waiting for him. And you will be ready…” His eyes lingered on Larra, and in the firelight they glinted like a raven’s. “You must be. You know what the Night King wants?”

“The end of all things,” Larra spoke softly, her voice almost lost to the wind. Benjen nodded slowly.

“He intends to undo this world, the world of Men.”

“But I don’t understand…he _was_ a man, once,” Meera said, glancing at Bran for confirmation.

“The Children made him…” Benjen said sadly, his eyes lingering on Bran. “Only the Three-Eyed Raven had the knowledge to _un_ make him. Until you.” He glanced from Brandon to Larra. “Three-Eyed Ravens throughout history have waited and watched, ensured that you found your way to the heart-tree.”

“Me?” She glanced at Brandon, whose eyes were as solemn as they had been when the Bloodraven had told her the truth of her parentage.

“Targaryens have always had dragon-dreams…the Sight, borne of the magic in their blood,” Benjen sighed softly. “Centuries ago, the Three-Eyed Raven gave Daenys the Dreamer a glimpse of the world as it would become…”

“Daenys the Dreamer? She was _centuries_ before the Conquest,” Larra whispered, remembering her histories. How many times had she read the stories to Arya? Stories…legends… People lost to the ravages of time…her _ancestors_ …

“Twenty generations of Targaryens ago,” Brandon said thoughtfully. “Your direct ancestor… That explains your dreams.” Larra glanced sharply at Brandon. She had never told Bran about her dreams - only Jon, and Father, who had instructed Maester Luwin to teach her how to paint, and purge the horrific and exquisite images from her mind…

“The Three-Eyed Raven ensured the Targaryens sailed to Dragonstone, the last annex of the Valyrian Freehold,” Benjen said. “Barely more than a decade after they made berth on Dragonstone, Valyria was lost to the Doom… Generations later, Aegon turned his eyes westward…a dynasty was forged in fire and blood…as it ended…and two tiny dragons were secreted away deep in Snow, until they were old and strong enough…” The tiny quirk of Benjen’s lip was tragically ironic; he sounded far too lyrical not to be quoting someone - he sounded like Lord Bloodraven.

“Are we?” Larra asked her uncle.

Benjen’s smile was awful.

“You must be.”

They rested for only as long as the fire lasted. Bodies screaming their protest, Larra took to the sled while Meera climbed behind Benjen on the horse; their honour-guard of direwolves escorted them, ever southwards, fighting the storm. Brandon indicated by signals each time they needed to alter their course: He had ravens spying out the Night King’s armies, knew when to evade and when to wait.

If it took days, Larra could not recall how many. They travelled in silence, but for Bran’s directions and the grumblings of hungry direwolves, the boldest and best hunters disappearing, to return herding their rare prey for Benjen to butcher and prepare for them, wherever they could find some brief respite from the elements. The little red direwolf became bolder, a favourite, loping beside Larra and the sled, a constant companion.

Bran watched the snowy sky unseeingly, his eyes milky, nestled in his furs as they slipped over the snow, following Benjen’s sure-footed horse. He was learning, _preparing_. Doing what he should still have been doing beneath the weirwood, had he not been so foolhardy… Had he not been so desperate to see their family again. Larra could not blame him, not entirely: He had seen her mother, after all…he saw them all. She wondered what he saw, whether he knew Sansa and Arya’s fates, if Rickon and Osha had reached the Umbers, and how Robb’s war was waging.

But she did not ask. Likely, Bran was not looking for their family: He had work to do. And he was no longer only Bran Stark: He was the Three-Eyed Raven.

The Bloodraven had told Larra, early on, that the man was lost to the myth: Bran would lose himself, for a good long while, as he learned his powers and indulged in them, and as time passed, he might forget where he belonged in the story… But he had every reason to fight his way back: They needed him. Not just his family…everyone. The world of Men needed Bran. He could not indulge in the past.

They headed south, toward the Wall…they were headed _home_.

Where else could they go?

Winterfell.

It made her stomach ache and her blood simmer with anger to think of her home, now, mired with so many hateful, pain-drenched memories, the ghosts of people she had loved, and left behind - the ones who had left _her_ behind…

She had wondered very often what had become of Winterfell, of the smallfolk who had made it their home for generations; she wondered whether Winter’s Town was filling up, as it only ever did when the snows fell dozens of feet thick upon the moors. She could barely remember the last winter; Brandon had been the first of her siblings born in summer, it was all he had ever known until they breached the Wall and headed north toward the Land of Always Winter. But she remembered snow up to the ramparts, the dull hacking and creaking of the trees always planted in spring being felled, for winter firewood; she remembered a haze of smoke lingering above Winter’s Town like a blanket, firelight glinting like jewels in the grey winter days. She remembered cuddling with her Father, and sharing the great box-bed with Jon and Robb when they were so little it hadn’t mattered, long before Arya and Rickon and Brandon, long before Theon had ever come to Winterfell…

The last time she had seen the great grove of weirwoods, Brandon had still been her brother, a hungry, irritable boy frustrated by his broken body while his active mind tormented him with visions and portents.

Whether by nature’s magic or by the Children themselves, the weirwoods had grown in a perfect spiralling circle, and in their centre, the heart-tree, its carved face weeping ruby sap. In the gale, the boughs of the tree seemed to groan a lament to the Three-Eyed Raven they had lost, the leaves like bloody hand-prints whispering a sigh, greeting the new one.

It was this grove, in front of this very heart-tree, that Jon had sworn his oath to the Night’s Watch.

They were close to the Wall, now - so close, Larra had been shocked when it suddenly appeared, in a break in the storm, the snows gentling just long enough to see the glimmering blue-white curtain cutting across the silver sky, imposing and awing.

They were so close to the Wall, they seemed to momentarily lose their dread of the storm chasing them. Meera climbed down off the horse, stretching her legs and groaning, plucking at the strings of her bow with chilled, stiff fingers. There were two snow-hares tucked into her belt, barely a speck of blood on their pristine fur: Meera caught Larra’s eye, and they exchanged the briefest of looks before Meera started to dig a small pit to protect a fire, starting to prepare the rabbits for skinning. Larra stepped gratefully from the sled, taking a risk by unbuckling Shadow from the harness; they were both relieved, and Shadow shook herself thoroughly, padding off to the other direwolves as Larra turned to her uncle. He had climbed off his horse, and gazed sorrowfully at the Wall as the fog and snow cleared, giving them tempting glimpses.

Jon was beyond that absurd structure.

It was all that now protected them from the storm chasing at their heels.

She hoped it held.

The snow crunched softly beneath her feet, and the wind seemed to drop as she approached her uncle, leaving everything in breathless silence.

It didn’t matter, truly, not now, but she couldn’t help ask something that had been on the tip of her tongue since she had learned the truth.

“Did you know, all this time?” she asked softly. Benjen sighed, gazing sorrowfully at the Wall. It wasn’t weeping today, as it had the days when she had approached it from the south with Jojen and Hodor and Meera and Summer: It looked glassy and impossibly solid, unyielding. Uninviting - she wondered how the Free Folk felt when they looked upon it. She knew some climbed over it, so desperate were they to escape the Night King’s hordes…any life was better than that fate, even a life on their knees.

His dark eyes rested on her face, and Larra knew, before he ever said a word. “When we were children, I was as close with Lyanna as you were with Jon and Arya. I might’ve even been her favourite… We used to spar together in the godswood, though Father didn’t like Lyanna to wield weapons… She was very good.” His eyes twinkled as he gazed at Larra, at the pommel of Dark Sister glinting in the meagre winter light. “Harrenhall was the first time we had ever seen royalty, the famous Prince of Dragonstone… He was _otherworldly_. We read about them in our histories but to _see_ a Targaryen, one of the Valyrians of legend, with his indigo eyes and his pale silver-gold hair… He was handsome, and frustrated - I remember thinking, he seemed to be wearing a mask to conceal his anger, as Brandon - _my_ brother Brandon…as Brandon so often did, his smile carved in a handsome face as if he were made of stone.”

Sometimes Father had spoken of the Rebellion - especially to her brothers, when they had been young enough to still glorify war and slept, dreaming of themselves as heroes listed alongside the likes of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, and Ser Barristan the Bold… But she had never heard Benjen speak of it - he had been the Stark in Winterfell, after all, his father and brother - Brandon - murdered by the Mad King: But he had grown up with Lyanna at Winterfell while Father fostered at the Eyrie…

It seemed important not to interrupt, but Larra couldn’t help wonder: Rumour had spread, after the Rebellion, that Rhaegar had secretly funded Lord Whent’s tourney at Harrenhall, hoping to amass the high lords of Westeros to settle the matter of his father’s madness - and, perhaps, a regency. King Aerys had caught a whisper of sedition and insisted on attending the tourney: And history had been made. Instead of a regency to curb the Mad King’s tyranny, Rhaegar had been diverted by a dark-haired, wild beauty from the North, sparking an ember that became a blaze of wildfire, setting alight a dynasty. One way or the other, the Mad King had been dethroned, but Larra couldn’t help think, thousands of lives would not have been wasted had Rhaegar simply forged ahead, and taken direct rule from his father, and lived up to the potential everyone, decades later, was still bemoaning he never lived up to.

Lord Whent, Rhaegar, Aerys, Elia, Lyanna… _What a bloody mess_.

“Ned teased her for weeping when Prince Rhaegar sang… He had a handsome voice. I couldn’t help but see him, when you stood in front of the feasters to sing before King Robert. You have the same gift…he mesmerised everyone, even those who had no time for songs… I laughed when Lyanna upturned her wine over Ned’s head… She hummed Rhaegar’s song for months, after - I don’t think she even knew she was doing it… When the squires attacked Howland Reed, Lyanna had the idea to put them in their places; I helped her piece together a suit of armour from bits and pieces we found around the Northern lords’ camp outside Harrenhall…I cheered my sister on when the Knight of the Laughing Tree championed in the lists… Only Ned and I knew who it was, of course. That night after the feast, Lyanna seemed…thrilled, excited, more vibrant than I had ever seen her…she whispered to me that Prince Rhaegar had found her out. I’d heard about the Mad King; I worried she’d be burned alive before the melee next-morning… Rhaegar told his father that they’d found the mystery-knight’s shield, nothing more… Snow was starting to fall as we walked to our tents, everyone complaining of the cold - her laughter echoed through the camp; it was like a summer’s day to us, so used to _real_ winters… I still remember the snow melting in her braids, threaded with tiny white day-bells to match her silver-grey velvet gown… They’d spoken for hours, Lyanna told me, her and Rhaegar, nestled away in the overgrown godswood… They spoke long enough to fall in love…

“The next morning, a squire found me, and asked me whether Lyanna had a favourite flower; I told him it was the winter rose… Lyanna had always admired them: Striking because of their simplicity, and unyielding. They endured the harshest winters, buried beneath the snows, and came back time and again… I remember you braiding them into your hair as she used to, for feasts… When Rhaegar crowned Lyanna his Queen of Love and Beauty, the roses were still crisp with frost, they seemed to glimmer like crushed glass… She wove those flowers into her hair for days before the blooms withered…we had returned to Winterfell by then, and the first of Rhaegar’s letters arrived. By rider - _never_ by raven; and delivered right into Lyanna’s hand - they would wait for her in the godswood…”

“He sent _letters_ to my mother?” Lyanna breathed, something fluttering in her chest. “What happened to them?” Benjen glanced at her, his eyes so cunning.

“When she ran away to meet Rhaegar at Harrenhall, she took the letters with her,” he said, wincing apologetically, as Larra’s heart sank. “She didn’t want Father to think less of her.”

“ _Less_ of her?!”

“Rhaegar was still married to Elia Martell, after all; and Lyanna was betrothed to Robert, though she had no fondness for him,” Benjen sighed, and Larra noticed that his breath didn’t fog in front of him as hers did.

“But…Bran saw them married by the High Septon, in front of a heart-tree,” Lyanna frowned. “Did she suspect Rhaegar might not wed her?”

In all her life, she could not recall a single occasion when her father had ever spoken poorly of Prince Rhaegar, not _ever_ …because he was her father. Hers, and Jon’s. Ned’s _brother_ by the laws of Men and gods, though no-one knew it.

“In spite of what others have believed since the Rebellion, Rhaegar _was_ a man of honour,” Benjen said, his expression solemn; and it said a lot, that Benjen Stark had said it. As if Ned Stark himself was reassuring Larra that her father by blood had been as good a man as Ned himself, who was the very best of them. She knew it, in her heart: Ned was irrefutably the bravest, most loyal, most honourable man she would ever know. And that was a devastating thought.

“But he wrecked everything.”

“Coaxing Lyanna to run away was ill-advised, perhaps…but Lyanna knew our father: He was stubborn as an aurochs, and had already pledged her hand to the Lord of Storm’s End, though everyone knew Robert had already fathered a bastard, and we all suspected he would never be loyal to her.”

“Your father wouldn’t yield even to the heir of the Iron Throne?” Benjen’s eyes lit up with irony, his smile brief but almost impish.

“You know Northmen better than to have to ask that,” he chuckled. “No, it was foolish of them to act in secrecy: But it was Brandon - my brother Brandon - who ruined whatever future Lyanna and Rhaegar had planned…a rider appeared, perhaps he had even crossed paths with Brandon and his friends on their way to King’s Landing - asking Father for his blessing, and his support. Rhaegar couldn’t trust the Southern lords, not with the King’s Master of Whisperers - but the Northmen are a different breed, and Rhaegar knew it. They are loyal to their own; and they respect a strong woman who takes control of her fate… Rhaegar and Lyanna both hoped Father would unite the North behind Rhaegar’s claim as Regent for his father; they wrote that Elia Martell would be retired to Dorne for her health, her children dividing their time between Sunspear and King’s Landing, while Rhaegar and Lyanna began their family…”

“They wrote your father about this?” Larra asked, marvelling. “He _knew_ they were wed?”

“The rider delivered the letter into my father’s hand, bearing the seals of Rhaegar - _and_ of Lyanna… She had joined the Stark direwolf in a single ouroboros with a dragon, a winter rose inside it with her initials… He’d had the wax seal made for her before they met at Harrenhall… _Princess of Dragonstone_ , she had signed the letter… Brandon only heard that Lyanna had disappeared with Rhaegar and flew into one of his rages; I’d never seen my father _shocked_. Before he knew it, Brandon had taken to the Kingsroad… The rest we know; but my father knew Rhaegar had acted honourably toward Lyanna, had wed her, before witnesses - his most trusted friends and protectors, the High Septon… When Brandon was imprisoned, and the Mad King summoned Father, he went south to King’s Landing, hoping to speak to Queen Rhaella about Rhaegar’s marriage to Lyanna…that the Starks were not enemies to the Crown, but that they were bound by marriage, perhaps the only allies the Targaryens had left after King Aerys’ behaviour…”

“He never spoke to the Queen, did he?” Lyanna guessed sadly. In her mind, Rickard Stark looked very much like Father, grim and deeply loving, and fearful every waking moment for his children’s happiness and their futures, and the safety and happiness of his people.

Benjen stared sadly at her; he didn’t have to answer. They all knew what had happened next. Rhaegar, ensconced in the Tower of Joy with Lyanna, might never have known about Brandon and Rickard’s arrests until it was too late, and the Rebellion had ignited across the Seven Kingdoms like wildfire.

“What happened to the letter?” Lyanna asked. It was important: A letter, written by Rhaegar, bearing Lyanna’s new seal, and her title, in the possession of the Warden of the North… It was proof…proof of her lineage, proof she and Jon were not _bastards_.

It didn’t matter to her that, by blood and by law, she and Jon had a greater claim to the Iron Throne than anyone living.

All she wanted in that moment was to shove that letter under Lady Catelyn’s nose, and see the horror dawn in her eyes as she realised she had punished her husband for being the most honourable man in living memory, that she had despised innocent children born higher than any of her own - that she had been needlessly cruel to those who had posed no threat to her son’s inheritance, for their own was far more illustrious… She wanted Lady Catelyn to know she had never deserved Ned Stark: And that the woman who had always had Ned’s heart was his only sister, who had died tragically young, holding his hand as her babies mewled for her.

Perhaps she wanted Lady Catelyn to beg her forgiveness, for years of mistreatment, hatred and coldness.

All Larra had ever wanted was a mother. Once upon a time, she had hoped it might be Lady Catelyn: If she had so much as stroked her hair or kissed a cut on her finger, Larra would have been _hers_ , absolutely.

Unkindness left its mark: And Larra wanted the satisfaction of seeing Lady Catelyn Tully brought low by the dreadful, exhilarating truth - that Ned Stark was a better man than even his own family had ever known… Larra had thought her opinion of Ned Stark could never get any better: She had been proven wrong.

“My father took it with him to King’s Landing, as proof,” Benjen sighed, his eyes shuttered. For the briefest moment, Larra realised that they had both experienced the same, brutal thing: Their fathers had both been summoned to King’s Landing, and murdered as traitors. They had both been left behind at Winterfell to look after the North while their brothers went off to war…

“I wonder if Queen Rhaella ever saw it,” Larra sighed, her breath gusting before her in a great plume.

She should know better, after years with the Three-Eyed Raven, than to dwell on the past. _The ink is dry_ … _But what if…?_

It was human-nature to wonder what things _might_ have been like…to regret that they would have been _better_ than they were…

There was no changing it, though; as the Bloodraven had said, the ink was dry.

It did not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live.

Larra glanced at her uncle. “Was she beautiful?”

“She was,” Benjen answered softly, his dark eyes flicking over her face. “You look so like her, it hurts. You and Jon look more like Lyanna than you do Rhaegar, but he is there, in your faces, sometimes. I’ve seen it. The shape of your eyes, your hands aren’t Lyanna’s. They are all Rhaegar; I remember his nimble fingers plucking the lyre as he sang… I see him more in Jon’s nature; he’s excellent at killing - and hates it. Rhaegar never liked war. He liked singing, and he liked reading - like you. But your mother…Lyanna was fierce, and good, and she was gentle and kind. She loved flowers and dancing, and Old Nan’s stories, and galloping over the moors, exploring the wolfswood. She was sweet to Hodor and liked to tease me, but she was protective, too. A she-wolf…like you.”

“We’ve had very different lives,” Larra said softly. She had never fallen in love: Her mother’s love had destroyed a dynasty.

“Yes,” Benjen agreed. “I can tell you, as the one who knew her best… Lyanna would be so _proud_ of the woman you’ve become - of the man Jon has become.”

“Was it really worth it? All the _horror_ , the death…”

“Were _you_ worth it?” Benjen asked softly, stepping closer, to cup her face in his hand. His eyes were solemn; hers burned. “ _Always_. Absolutely.” His smile was pained.

“Why…why did Father never tell us?”

“You don’t know how hard I battled to take you and Jon to a holdfast, and raise you,” Benjen sighed, his eyes grief-stricken. “Ned returned from Dorne with you and Jon… I knew. How could I not? Ned told me it was he who had vowed to Lyanna you would always be safe, protected from Robert Baratheon, from everyone…”

Larra’s eyes burned, caught up in the dream of growing up with Jon and Benjen in some small, warm holdfast, just the three of them, happy and content and _loved_. “We would’ve been happy.”

“We wouldn’t have ended up here,” Benjen said quietly. “And here is where we were both always meant to be.”

“Are you coming with us?” Larra asked; she hoped so, but knew, in the pit of her stomach, that the magic steeped through his body would prevent him passing the Wall.

“You know I can’t,” Benjen said softly, his smile sorrowful. “But I still fight for the living. And I will fight, for as long as I can.”

“Thank you for telling me about her. About my mother.”

“I wish I had more time to tell you about her. I wish you’d known her… You’re so much like her, Larra,” Benjen said, cupping her face, gazing at her. Looking upon Lyanna, one last time.

He leaned forward, pressing a cold kiss to her forehead.

“Thank you, Benjen.” Her eyes burned, filling with tears: His black eyes glinted and he pressed his forehead against hers, breathing calmly, before pressing something into her palm. He gazed at her one last time, before turning to his horse.

Benjen galloped away, as if he could not bear to spend one moment longer with them - with her, with the ghost of his sister reborn.

He tore himself away, as if knowing he might never leave if he let himself gaze at her any longer.

Benjen missed his sister, had had no-one to talk about her to for decades; and had no time, now, to talk to her only daughter about her, the one person in the world who desperately wanted to hear about her.

Did it really matter?

Larra was who she was, because of Ned Stark - because of Benjen, even. Because of growing up a bastard of the North, with a twin-brother she loved, and siblings she had adored and envied in equal measure. Did it matter what her mother had been like, when Larra knew herself to be tireless, kind, gentle, resilient, brave, stubborn, protective, talented, educated and sometimes charming? She was who she was: And those who had known and loved Lyanna had told her that her mother would be proud of her. Lyanna was dead, and most who had known her too: Larra was herself. She was Larra Snow. Her blood did not change who she was, not when she had fought so hard to become this person.

Soon, Benjen was a speck far in the distance, flickering amongst the snowflakes and concealed by the fog - and then, gone.

Larra wiped her face, and eventually turned toward the heart-tree, where Bran lay, eyes milky-white, hand splayed against the bone-white bark of the tree-trunk. Communing with the weirwood, with the world’s memories.

She shared a small meal with Meera by the fire: Meera didn’t ask after Benjen, or comment on Larra’s tear-stained face. They sat beside each other, sharing what little warmth they had, waiting for Brandon to free himself from the heart-tree.

“Where do we go from here?” Meera asked softly, her eyes turned toward the Wall.

“To Jon.”


	5. Two Blasts

**Valyrian Steel**

_05_

_Two Blasts_

* * *

The horn rang out, once…twice…

Everyone in Castle Black waited, filled with dread, for a third blast that never came.

Two blasts.

 _Wildlings_.

Edd had fought at Hard Home, had survived it against all odds. He had been one among thousands of survivors, though thousands too few, to board Stannis Baratheon’s ships and sail southwards. They had covered the frozen wastes of the North on foot to Castle Black, where Jon had left orders as Lord Commander to open the gates.

And in spite of his hatred of Jon, and even older hate of the wildings, Ser Alliser had opened the gate.

Thousands of wildlings had been allowed through the Wall, for the first time since Bran the Builder raised it. But the Night’s Watch had been forced to leave thousands more wildlings to join the Night King’s army.

He remembered what Sam had once said, that the Night’s Watch vows meant they had a duty to protect the _realms_ of Men, no matter which side of the Wall they were born. Their duty was to Men. The Night’s Watch had not been forged from the Age of Heroes to police wildlings; they were the sword in the darkness - and the darkness was the coming storm. The Night King and his legions.

Edd would remember the dead rising on the shores of Hard Home until his last breath. The _silence_ , after the screams… It haunted him still. How had any wildling survived the Night King’s army, when he had tens of thousands of soldiers at his command - _more_ \- scouring the lands beyond the Wall?

Eddison Tollet, Acting Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, picked up a flaming torch and trudged through the tunnel to the gate. It had been reinforced, three-fold, since Grenn fell defending it from the last King of Giants. He wondered if they should have blocked the tunnel, as Jon had advised Ser Alliser so long ago…but it hardly mattered now. If the Night King wanted past the Wall, one way or another he would find a way to do it.

It was a strange thing, to realise they had kept the tunnel unblocked so that any last wildlings fleeing the army of the dead could get south beyond the Wall to safety. When he had arrived at Castle Black, so long ago, he’d thought he’d be training to _kill_ wildlings. And he had fought them, and then fought _beside_ them, and then fought to _protect_ them, and realised the only difference between them was which side of the Wall they had grown up. He was the shield that guarded the realms of men, and they had all learned that a Night’s Watchman’s vows needed to be fluid: How could Jon unite the armies of the North from the Wall? He had reclaimed his home, and reunited the North under one banner, to protect the wildlings, and to prepare.

Jon needed him here. Jon needed to unite the Northern lords to fight the real enemy, but any force Jon could muster with his pretty, fire-kissed sister couldn’t be caught unawares by the coming storm…

Ice exploded in small volleys as the chains rattled and groaned, protesting in the cold: His torch flickered violently as a gust of wind blew snowflakes in his eyes, biting his skin. He never got used to the cold, but it was almost gentle today. The sky was an endless white, and a weak sun made the high banks of snow shimmer like a maiden’s silk name-day gown.

From the top of the Wall, he had seen the small formation approaching the Wall at some speed. There were no horses, as he had thought, and Edd stood, stunned, realising as the gate lifted that a pack of _direwolves_ had approached the Wall, encircling two people trudging on foot, a small sled between them pulled by a giant black direwolf almost as large as a dray-horse. The slender figures on foot were shrouded in furs, skins out, fur turned inward for more heat, the wildling way, but carrying suspiciously fine weapons in pale, slender hands scarred and calloused, and the wind teased a few curls loose from under their hoods. He could just see a pale face with sombre black eyes staring out from a pile of furs in the sled, a young man’s face, surrounded by freshly-cropped dark hair.

He was reminded inexplicably of Benjen Stark, of Jon: A long face, sombre features and a stern nose. He wasn’t yet a man, Edd thought, certainly years younger than Jon… And Edd remembered, years ago, Sam bringing a wildling girl and her babe through the Wall with stories of a crippled boy, a giant, and a ferocious, beautiful girl who sang to them as they shared a fire in the abandoned Night Fort to chase the ghosts away…Jon’s twin-sister.

“Are you wildlings?” he asked dubiously, looking at the two on their feet. He could only see their eyes; their faces were protected with furs.

The taller of the two pushed back her hood, revealing a white oval face that reminded him of statues of the Maiden in his village’s small sept. Pale, and sorrowful and beautiful, carved from pure white stone. She had a shock of freckles across her nose and her cheeks, decorating her skin as the stars did the night-sky. Her eyes were breath-taking, a deep vivid blue that was almost violet, beautiful and sharp as daggers, ringed with thick, blunt lashes. Above them, thick dark brows hovered sternly. Short locks of her dark hair curled wildly around her temples where they had escaped a thick, messy braid tangled with curls the colour of treacle, wound around her head like a crown. She had a pretty nose, high cheekbones and beautiful plump lips like tight rosebuds about to burst into bloom, drawn into a grim line.

Those eyes were the most vibrant thing he had seen in years.

She was shockingly _beautiful_.

She looked so like Jon that he stared. She was even tall like him.

“Samwell Tarly,” she said, in Jon’s Northern accent. “We need to see Sam.”

Edd gaped. She knew _Sam’s_ name? He glanced from her to the other girl - she had lowered her hood, revealing cropped curls, dark eyes and a face far less beautiful than the taller girl’s, though still pretty in her way. She looked tired and gaunt - they both did, and she crept closer to the sled, where the young man gazed calmly at Edd.

“How do you know Sam’s name?” he asked, bewildered; no wildling would ever have left Sam alive. The brothers of the Watch, those who honoured the Old Gods, believed Sam must have been favoured for swearing his Night’s Watch vows before a heart-tree, for how else could the craven Samwell Tarly have killed a White Walker with only a shard of dragonglass?

But he had. Sam was no liar.

“He showed us the way through the Wall years ago,” said the first girl. She looked older than the other, the one with the short hair; she looked so like Jon it was startling - and it was amusing to Edd to realise there _was_ someone in the world prettier than Jon Snow. “This is Lady Meera, daughter of Lord Howland of House Reed, and Brandon, brother of Robb Stark, King in the North. And I am Alarra Snow.” She added her name as an afterthought - only _after_ introducing the true-born nobles as if announcing their appearance at court.

He remembered Sam telling them about a cripple - but where was the giant? And the skinny lad from the Neck who had been with them, sickly and pale? Edd knew, without asking: The storm had claimed them.

They were not lacking for direwolves; Sam had told Jon that two had been with the cripple and his sister. Now there was a huge pack of them, and he was aware his men were unnerved by them waiting, patiently, clustered around the gate, monstrous adults and huge, spindly-legged pups showing their lethal fangs as they yawned and yelped and played in the snow.

Alarra Snow…

 _Larra_ …

If he ever needed proof this young woman was Jon’s sister, it was in the direwolves guarding her so fiercely.

“You’re Jon’s sister,” muttered Edd, and his men shifted behind him. Everyone knew and respected Jon - the ones who had lived after the mutiny, of course; and even the ones who had surrendered grudgingly admired him. Those intense violet eyes lanced to his face, and Edd almost flinched. Where Jon was solemn and hid a sense of humour behind his profound sense of duty and loyalty, his eyes were always thoughtful, and usually kind. Hers were sharp like a Valyrian dagger and as dangerous as the direwolves circling them, filled with the kind of tension he remembered in the men before the wildlings’ first attack on Castle Black, all that long time ago. Coiled with tension, like any of the direwolves surrounding them, waiting to attack their prey.

She had been beyond the Wall for years.

He could only imagine what she had survived.

“You were at the Fist of the First Men. You were at Hard Home with our brother,” said a soft male voice; the young man in the sled spoke blandly, and he was staring at Edd - or, _through_ Edd. His dark eyes were turned toward him but Edd didn’t think the lad really saw _him_ at all. “You’ve seen the Army of the Dead. You have seen the Night King… He is coming for us. For all of us. We must be ready.”

A tiny frown had appeared between Alarra Snow’s dark brows when Edd glanced at her, shocked. How did the lad know that? He didn’t understand the look on Alarra’s face, something like annoyance, almost distrust, as she gave the lad a sidelong look: But she lifted her vivid eyes to his and something like sorrow flickered in them - not pity. _Respect_. Edd had seen a lot, beyond the Wall: And so had she. He knew that, just from looking at her, just from the sight of her stood at the gate, wrapped in furs, _alive_. Jon smiled, laughed richly, on occasion - this girl, his twin-sister, looked like she hadn’t smiled in a good long while, perhaps had even forgotten how to. She looked all the more beautiful because of it, even shrouded in furs, grubby from her journey.

A true Northern beauty, strong as steel, unyielding as a snowstorm, implacable as a glacier.

“Where is Sam? We need to speak with him - he is still steward to the Maester, isn’t he?” Alarra pressed, her crisp Northern tones bordering impatient. Behind her, the great expanse of the North seemed to loom, barren and haunted.

“Maester Aemon…he died, and Jon sent Sam south to the Citadel to train as his replacement,” Edd said, and Alarra Snow stared at him, something making her intense eyes spark like the embers of a violet fire.

“Maester _Aemon_?” she breathed, glancing briefly at the young man in the sled. Brandon Stark did not look back, but gazed blandly at the furs tucked over his legs. If Edd had thought Alarra Snow’s face showed no emotion, she was a novice compared to the boy, his features still and detached, carved from marble. Alarra Snow frowned, and glanced up at Edd. “And what do you mean, _Jon_ sent him south?”

She had a Northern accent, but she had been raised a High Lord’s daughter, even a bastard one; she had a different accent than the smallfolk of the North, but then again, a different accent than her half-sister Sansa, educated by a septa and raised at court. Her words were crisp, though, as if she faintly remembered having her words minded. Polite, though: Courtesy went a long way.

“Jon… He reclaimed Winterfell, but he left me in charge of the Watch,” Edd told her. She stared, as if his words were absurd.

“What do you mean?”

“Jon Snow was named the nine-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, after Jeor Mormont was butchered during a mutiny beyond the Wall,” said one of Edd’s companions, a big burly man with an enviable salt-and-pepper beard. He was Northern, Edd vaguely remembered. Every Northman respected the Starks - and she was Ned Stark’s blood, even if she didn’t have his name. More than that, Edd’s brother respected _Jon_.

Alarra Snow’s eyelashes fluttered as her eyes widened, the only indication of her shock. Her pretty lips twitched toward something like a smile, but it radiated from her eyes, more than her mouth; they glittered with something joyous and warm - _pride_ \- and for a second the terrifying wolf-warrior melted away, and Edd saw her brother’s smile in her eyes.

“Jon was voted Lord Commander?” she breathed, and then her brows drew together, her lips parting. Hesitantly, she asked, “How could he retake Winterfell? He was sworn to give his life to the Watch.”

“He did,” said the boy in the sled, before Edd could open his mouth. The lad did not look up from his furs, but Alarra Snow seemed to sway on her feet, and all around her, the direwolves started to fidget, agitated. The enormous black one pulling the sled went rigid, fur on end. The boy sighed, and finally lifted dark, ancient, empty eyes to his half-sister. “He killed the boy, Alarra. He let the man be born.”

Edd stared at the boy, shaken. It was common knowledge at the Castle, what happened to Jon Snow - the mutiny; and the Red Woman using fire-magic to bring him back after they butchered him. But Jon did not speak of it - Edd didn’t know if he had even told the beautiful red-haired sister who had appeared at Castle Black all those months ago, pale and desperate but fierce and proud. She’d been the finest thing anyone at the Castle had seen in years, perhaps longer. A great beauty, kissed by fire.

First one sister, now another. Jon had three, Edd knew. Jon had thought two of them dead: One stood before Edd now.

Brandon Stark turned to Edd. “There is much you must tell my sister about the King in the North. But we should not linger beyond the protection of the Wall…” His pointed chin tucked down, to the side, as if he was listening behind him for the sounds of the Night King’s army groaning and snarling at their heels. Perhaps they were: The Watch could not afford to send men out to cut down the woods, though Mance Rayder’s great fire had gone a long way in clearing the terrain immediately beyond the Wall. As long as the snows and the fog were not too heavy, they would see the armies of the dead coming… And then Edd had no clue what he’d do.

“What has Robb got to do with this?” Alarra asked, her dark brows drawing together, and Edd glanced at his brothers, suddenly uneasy. Robb Stark, the Young Wolf. King in the North… She had been beyond the Wall for years…

Did she not know?

The Red Wedding…how _could_ she know? He remembered Grenn gently breaking the news to Jon with Maester Aemon, before that very first attack of wildlings from the south, led by Tormund Giantsbane, and Jon’s redhead wildling girl… Stuck through with arrows, Jon had had to be told about the sacking of Winterfell, Theon Greyjoy’s betrayal…his brothers’ and sister’s murders by his own brother… First that, and then the ginger wildling lass, shot through the heart, dying in Jon’s arms… Jon had to think the gods had no love for him at all.

Turned out, perhaps, they… _did_.

The lad did not raise his eyes from his furs; Edd stood helplessly, remembering Jon’s reaction to the news, dreaded having to deliver the news to his sister… And what about the younger brother Jon had lost on the battlefield outside Winterfell? He’d been too little, had been left at Winterfell, Jon had told them, his wild younger brother who had wept bitterly and lashed out at Jon in a rage when he went to say goodbye before journeying to the Wall…

There had been little hope of saving the boy from Ramsay Bolton’s dungeon, but Jon had been determined to do it.

It was one of the many reasons men respected him, chose to follow him.

At least Edd could say Sansa Stark had escaped King’s Landing. That was something, at least. He remembered Jon’s reaction when she’d appeared in the yard, grubby and cold; Jon’s heart, warmed by the Red Woman’s fire, had stopped once again.

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Edd sighed, glancing past the girls to the snows beyond. “You must be hungry.”

“What about them?” one of his men asked, nodding at the direwolves, who were padding over the snows to form a guard around the slender women and the sled-bound boy.

“ _I’m_ not trying to stop them,” Edd muttered, eyeing the direwolves warily. They were larger than any of the Watch’s rugged ponies, lean from snowstorms, and he had seen Ghost fight too many times not to be wary of their strength and ferocity - it was no wonder the ancient Starks had used them in their sigil. Vicious, dangerous, hard-to-kill, monstrous wolves from legend, for implacable, dangerous hard-to-kill men from legend. Even in the Vale he had grown up with stories of the Starks and their direwolf sigil.

 _Winter is coming_ … From the Vale, born and bred, Edd had never thought he’d live by the Northmen’s words. The Watch was bonded more strongly with Winterfell than any other House in the Seven Kingdoms, and it showed; he remembered Maester Aemon muttering that ‘Starks are always right in the end… _winter is coming_ …’ He sometimes wondered what the Maester would have said about all this…and was glad, somehow, that he wasn’t around to have to survive it. Would they?

As the last pup pelted along the tunnel, followed by a grumbling elder, the gate creaked and groaned, lowering, leaving the tunnel darkened, eerie, glowing with a soft blue light that reminded Edd all too clearly of the Night King’s army. Alarra Snow turned to Edd, as the other girl mounted the sled, guiding Brandon Stark toward the castle.

“Lord Commander,” she said quietly, with a stern, respectful bite, her brows knitting together as she gazed back down the tunnel toward the gate. “Anyone caught behind us fights for the Night King now.”

He liked that she did not mince words, though it filled him with dread to hear them.

“How long do we have?” Edd asked, after sighing heavily. He had to have seen the Night King to believe his strength; perhaps that was why Jon had left him the Watch - because Edd _had_ seen, and knew the truth of the danger they all faced.

“Not nearly long enough,” Alarra told him. She had Jon’s long legs, and though she limped, her gait was swift - she walked as if she was determined to not let anything get in her way, not even physical pain. Her hand was curled around the hilt of a precious sword, a great shining red stone set into the pommel, etched with something Edd couldn’t quite see. Jon had never said House Stark had more than one Valyrian steel sword, the one his father wielded, named Ice: Jon had regretted his father’s - his family’s - sword had been lost in King’s Landing when they beheaded his father. “Moon-turns, perhaps, if that. I would not wager against more than six. The dead do not tire.”

“The Wall has stood for thousands of years,” Edd reminded her, reminded himself. He slept infrequently, and badly, and woke choking on his terror, blue eyes glowing in the shadows of his chamber.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t fail us before we’re ready to face the storm,” Alarra muttered, her expression dubious as she lifted those violet eyes to the icy tunnel around them.

“You really have seen him.” Those uncanny, almost wolf-like, dangerous blue eyes pinned Edd in place.

“We escaped him. _Just_ ,” Alarra admitted, gazing ahead at the sled, surrounded by Night’s Watch brothers and direwolves. She turned back to Edd, and something in her eyes had softened. _Grief_ seemed to seep from her, like waves of heat from a fire. “The Watch has existed for thousands of years; but it cannot fight the Night King from the Wall.”

“Where else would we fulfil our vows?” Edd frowned.

“Winterfell,” Alarra said, after a moment, glancing down the tunnel again. “Lord Commander… All the living North must unite if they want to survive the Long Night - and we can only protect our most vulnerable from Winterfell.”

She sounded like Sansa.

They had such profound faith in their home.

To them, Winterfell was not just a castle. It wasn’t stones and towers, forges and glasshouses and libraries and a godswood. It was safety. It was _strength_. It was _home_.

They had fought to reclaim it - Jon, and Lady Sansa.

Fought with all they had, and less than they needed. And _won_.

Starks had not ruled the North for thousands of years by being soft. Jon had not survived this long by being soft. Starks were stubborn as aurochs and vicious as direwolves, and they fought _together_. Edd knew the value of Jon’s loyalty: He had exchanged his family at Winterfell for his brothers at the Wall - and when those brothers betrayed him, he had taken on the mantel of protector - not just of his sister, but of the _entire_ North, of the Free Folk he had let through the gate to protect them from true monsters, of the smallfolk who knew nothing of the world beyond the borders of their hamlets, of the lords who had sworn their swords to protecting the North for centuries under the Stark banner.

The Starks had reclaimed Winterfell, erasing their enemies’ names from history, reminding Westeros that their great House had endured for so long for a _reason_ , and that strength meant they were one of the few great Houses left in Westeros left to recover from the recent turmoil. The King in the North was allied with the Free Folk for the first time in thousands of years, and had asked them to man the abandoned fortresses along the Wall: The Northern lords had strengthened their bonds with the new King in the North they had named after he avenged the Red Wedding: A battle-bond had been forged with the Knights of the Vale - Lady Sansa was cousin to Lord Arryn through her murdered mother, but the knights respected Jon Snow for his stern, fair leadership and earnestness.

Together, Jon and Sansa had reclaimed the North. _Together_. They had buoyed each other, encouraged and strengthened by each other’s nearness. They were _family_. And Jon Snow had always spoken of his father’s influence, that Ned Stark had considered every man, woman and child in the North his personal responsibility to provide for, and protect.

They had lost their brother in taking Winterfell back, but thousands of other brothers had been saved, and as great as Edd knew Jon’s grief would be over his brother’s death, it would be nothing to the relief that he could fulfil the vows he had sworn in the weirwood grove beyond the Wall… _I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men…_

“Why Winterfell? There are other castles between there and the Wall - although none so big.”

“Bran the Builder raised the Wall…but he also laid the foundations of Winterfell,” Alarra told him earnestly. “The same magic that holds the Wall protects the ancient keep of Winterfell. If we want to survive, we must all unite there - and that includes the brothers of the Night’s Watch. To leave you scattered along the Wall is a waste; we will need every able-bodied person we can get.”

“Jon sent wildlings to man the Wall’s outposts - he sent them to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea,” Edd muttered. “It’s closest to Hard Home; the Night King will likely march on the Wall there.”

“Recall them - send ravens, today, now, before the snows hit again - they must head south to Winterfell, with anyone they can find,” Alarra said plaintively.

“We must keep watch -“

“Everyone. _Everyone_ must go to Winterfell,” Alarra said urgently. “We will know, if they breach the Wall…we will know…” Her vivid eyes lingered on the sled.

“How?” Edd asked. The soft blue-white light at the end of the tunnel grew brighter as they approached - he could hear the clangs and shouts and echoes of the yard, the smithy, as they neared the Castle, the last of the direwolves disappearing into the brightness.

“You have seen things, Lord Commander, beyond the Wall. Giants, and worse.” He couldn’t help but like it when she called him Lord Commander.

“Aye.”

“When I tell you that my brother is the last of the great greenseers, would you waste our time disbelieving me?”

“Greenseer? He…has visions?” Edd frowned, and realised the lad could only have known Edd was at Hard Home and the Fist of the First Men if he _did_ have visions… Those who’d known about Hard Home were either far south of the Wall, or marching among the dead. Hadn’t they all heard stories about those struck mad with visions of the future - or the past? Greenseers came from legend - but then, didn’t giants belong there, too? Didn’t he wish White Walkers had remained confined to stories of the long-distant past? He had fought and survived both.

He’d seen Jon raised from the dead by a woman who sang in a foreign tongue and saw visions in the fire. If Jon Snow’s twin-sister was telling him that greensight was real, and that her brother had the gift, who was he to argue: He was going to believe her.

“He is the Three-Eyed Raven. Brandon sees all that ever was, and all that _is_ ,” Alarra told him, with the same seriousness that Jon had always spoken about things he was truly passionate about, believed in wholly. “We must get to Winterfell: When the Wall is breached, Brandon will tell us. But we must be leagues away from here before then, with as many people as we can save. Otherwise they will only join the Night King’s army, as all those lost at Hard Home did.”

He remembered Tormund Giantsbane _weeping_ as the Night King raised the dead on the ice-encrusted shores of Hard Home, the silence, the horror… If they’d only gotten there before, if they hadn’t fought so hard against the wildlings that they’d facilitated the Night King’s campaign without realising it…if only they could have _known_ , if only they’d had _time_ …

They entered the yard, and Edd gazed around. Half the courtyard had gone still, watching. Even with everything they had witnessed the last few months, it was not normal even for them for a pack of direwolves to pad their way through the snow into the training-yard, guarding a cripple, a lady from the Neck, and the twin-sister of the King in the North, their sworn brother. With her hood down, they could all see Alarra Snow’s stark beauty. She looked so like Jon, even the way she wore her sword-belt, her curls teased by the wind, that the men stared.

First Sansa Stark, and now Alarra Snow.

Was there anyone in the Stark family who wasn’t beautiful?

Edd sighed, eyeing the gate critically. He nodded to himself, making a decision.

“Your brother will tell us, if the Wall is breached?” Edd asked.

“Brandon will see it as it happens,” Alarra told him grimly. He sighed heavily, and indicated some of his brothers with a nod of the head. They trudged over, mindful of the direwolves - even the smaller ones were the size of ponies, could tear a man’s limbs with little effort. Ghost had fought when the wildlings attacked Castle Black; he had attacked when the mutineers turned on Jon’s friends.

“Lord Commander?”

“Seal the tunnel,” Edd commanded grimly. His brothers exchanged uneasy looks.

“There’s no need,” said Brandon Stark gently, and Edd glanced at him: Alarra frowned.

“Why?” Edd asked. He wasn’t going to mince words, not about his duty to protect the North from what lay beyond.

“The Night King will not bring his assault on the Wall here at Castle Black,” said the boy with the ancient voice. He was not looking at him; he gazed into the distance, his eyes glassy and sharp at the same time. Eerie, like a raven staring at him. “Not when there are so many more vulnerable places to choose from. Jon was right, sending the Free Folk to Eastwatch; but they’ll die there, if they stay.”

Edd stared at the boy, because he was barely more than a boy, even if his eyes seemed ancient. Ancient and cold and tired. Edd didn’t know what they had survived beyond the Wall, only that Samwell had let them through a secret door in the Night Fort years ago, leaving Jon and anyone else who heard the story to believe that Jon’s brothers and sister were, truly, dead. Because how could they have survived what was beyond? But they had. And they were here, now, warning Edd.

He’d wished many times that they’d reached Hard Home sooner. Facing _that_ , what did it matter that he wore black, and they wore furs and chainmail of muscle-shells? They were _alive_. In that moment, there had been no wildlings and no Night’s Watch, just the living, and the dead. If he’d had some warning, some way to know the fates that befell all those at Hard Home who could not be saved, if he had had some foresight, some way of getting there sooner…wouldn’t he have acted, without thought?

Jon would have.

The unlikeliest survivors of the bitterest place in the world were on his doorstep, telling him they would die if they did not get south - the sad irony that the Wall was now Hard Home. Only, they had prior warning.

He summoned an officer over with a twitch of his fingers.

“Lord Commander?”

“Send a lad up to the perches: Everyone’s to meet in the hall for nightfall.”

“What about the watch?” another brother asked.

“Everyone, in the hall, before nightfall,” Edd repeated. “In their thickest clothing, every one of them armed. Have the larders emptied into wagons, and as soon as they’re full, send them on to Last Hearth with the young, trained lads.” He watched as the men dispersed, and glanced at Alarra Snow. “Castle Black has been home to many of us for longer than we were ever with our families… It’ll unnerve them to abandon it.”

“There is no reason to stay here,” Alarra sighed sadly, her breath pluming around her face like a veil as she gazed around the courtyard, her features grim, and so like Jon, Edd almost smiled. He wondered if she was as disappointed by the Night’s Watch as Jon had been when he first arrived, his head full of stories of the glorious sacrifices made by the heroic Night’s Watch… Word spread around the courtyard, and the armoury and stables, that a meeting had been called; all other work was to cease, to get the wagons loaded.

And word spread that Lady Alarra Snow, sister to their brother the King in the North, was among them. He was conscious of the fact that Alarra Snow was the most beautiful woman any of them had seen since Sansa Stark - maybe even including her, depending on preference - and Jon wasn’t around this time. Jon’s blood still ran black, for all he was King in the North now - that made Alarra Snow his sister as much as Jon’s. Knowing his stubborn brothers as he did, Edd wondered if half the reason most of the men had gathered without complaint, waiting patiently as night fell in the hall, was to get a glimpse of her. Lady Sansa had been a sight for sore eyes, in her tired wool gown and vibrant hair: And Alarra, in her furs, with her rosebud lips and intensely violet eyes, was awing in her beauty, the candlelight making love to her ivory-white skin as she waited at the officer’s table, patiently listening to Edd, and Brandon Stark, who murmured so softly people were reminded of soft-spoken, wise, ancient Maester Aemon… Maester Aemon had spoken little, and so quietly most had to strain to hear, but what he had said was always careful, and wise, and right: Brandon Stark, a century younger, was the same.

“We’re headed south, lads,” he announced, sighing heavily. “The army of the dead marches on the Wall; if it falls, the only place we can fight, and fight together to defeat them, is Winterfell. Jon’s there. He’s gathering armies from across the North; he has the Knights of the Vale; he has the wildlings. We’re sending ravens tonight, everyone must abandon their posts at the Wall and retreat to Winterfell, with anyone they can find along the way.” Agitated murmuring, but generally, the men agreed; they were superstitious, and believed honest men. Jon and Sam and Edd were honest men: They also believed the word of battle-hardened, mad fuckers like Tormund Giantsbane, the last man to run from _anything_ , let alone a fight - and he had told them to _flee_ as far south as south goes… Jon had told the Night’s Watch that the Wall would fall, and the world would end; and they had to stop it. So, they would. Edd was just the man left in charge to make the decisions he thought Jon would. And Jon would tell him to get their brothers to Winterfell to join with the armies making a stand against the Night King.

“You’ve already started clearing out the larders. I want each of you to carry rations, and weapons,” Edd said, “even if you’ve not been instructed how to wield them yet. You’ll learn.”

“Lord Commander?” A woman’s soft, low voice, quiet and polite. Edd glanced at Lady Alarra. “Might I make a suggestion?”

“My lady?”

“Unless you’ve a cache of Valyrian steel in your armoury, your weapons are nigh on useless against the army of the dead,” Lady Alarra said, and his men shifted uncomfortably. To be told they had to fight was one thing: To know they would lose, regardless of how fiercely they fought? That was another. But the lady wasn’t finished: And the only thing stronger than fear was hope. “You have fletchers among you,” Lady Alarra said, gazing out over his brothers, and a few of his brothers nodded, murmuring. She had the same stern Northern face as Jon - and a good many Northern faces stared back at her, listening to her, an educated lady, the daughter of their respected liege-lord. It didn’t take long for his brothers to quiet: She had that same stern presence Jon did, regal and implacable - and it helped she was the most beautiful thing any of them would likely see before they died. She lanced those violet eyes to Edd. “Grant the fletchers room in the wagons; they are better served making arrows than marching with idle hands.”

Simple, really. Why hadn’t Edd thought of that? Jon had taken the only Valyrian steel sword south. They couldn’t light their swords on fire - but they could unleash a torrent of flaming arrows to keep the dead at bay. Fire and dragonglass were all that stopped wights and White Walkers.

“Hear that, lads; keep your hands warm,” Edd said, and the fletchers nodded. “Take some of the boys, too; teach them.” He glanced at Larra. “Before he went south, Jon ordered us to start drilling daily with bows. Seems you think alike in spite of the distance between you.”

“Experience is a brutal teacher,” Lady Alarra said sorrowfully, and Edd nodded. “How much pitch do you have?”

“Almost a thousand barrels,” said one of his brothers. “The Shadow Tower and Eastwatch each sent half their cache after the wildling attack on Castle Black, Stannis Baratheon left more behind, what with having the Red Woman alongside him.”

“We’ll need it,” Lady Alarra said simply, and Edd’s brother nodded, turning to murmur to the men around him.

“Right, lads… You know your orders. Put on all your warmest clothes. The first of the wagons should nearly be ready to go,” Edd said, over the low murmur groaning through the hall. “Fletchers, go now and get your things. We can’t wait for first light; we can’t risk another snowstorm won’t hit. The wagons leave as they’re filled. Every man’s to carry his rations, his bed-roll, a sword, a bow and quiver, a flint and torch. Stewards going through the library - pack up the scrolls, and you can keep reading as we go; I want three of you on the wagon, taking shifts to read and drive. And don’t forget ravens.” Edd sighed, but turned to Lady Alarra as he sat down heavily beside her, his brothers scraping back their benches and murmuring - but carried out orders. Under Jeor Mormont, under Jon, the Watch ran itself: Every man knew what was expected of him, and their leadership showed itself now, a small army mobilising at a moment’s notice. “Sam’ll murder me for leaving half the library, but what can you do?”

“Why only half the library?” Lady Alarra asked curiously.

“The lads’ve been digging out any manuscript or scroll referencing dragonglass or obsidian; Jon’s orders. It’s the only thing -“

“The only thing that can kill wights and White Walkers, besides Valyrian steel,” Lady Alarra murmured, nodding to herself.

“S’pose you can’t’ve made it this far without learning how to kill them yourself,” Edd ventured, not wanting to ask about their experiences beyond the Wall - after all, not all of them had made the return journey. She gave a nod, agreeing, but not giving any information either. Instead, sat upright and queenly in her chair, she turned to Edd, and asked, “What is it you’re so reluctant to tell me?”

Edd stared at her, and sighed heavily. He reached for a flagon and filled her cup.

“Here. Drink,” he said heavily. “Best light a fire in your belly before I tell you.”

Alarra Snow exchanged a glance with her companion: Lady Meera nodded, and followed after Brandon Stark without a word as several of Edd’s brothers carried the lad to the Lord Commander’s tower.

“It shouldn’t be me, telling you all this,” Edd sighed, agitated and uncomfortable. “It should be Jon.”

“What happened?”

“What’s the last thing you’d heard? About Winterfell - about - anything -?”

He told her.

She took the news stoically, her face betraying no emotion: But her eyes seemed to glow with purple fire, glinting in the candlelight, and a muscle in her jaw ticked, as if she was clenching her teeth so tightly, no scream of grief could ever pass.

But she didn’t cry. She didn’t scream, or rage. She simply closed her eyes, and let out a soft, broken gasp. She croaked a thank you, to Edd, for telling her.

But it shouldn’t have been Edd telling her. It shouldn’t even have been Jon.

It should have been _Bran_ to tell her everything.


	6. The Sharpest Blades

**Valyrian Steel**

_06_

_The Sharpest Blades_

* * *

“Jon…”

He looked up from the table, littered with raven-scrolls and papers from the maesters, sums and estimations, and set down the census Maester Wolkan had gathered on all the able bodies who had arrived at Winterfell since he called the banners - their trade, their children, any skills with weapons. As much as he wanted to ensure every able-bodied person in the North could wield an obsidian dagger against the coming storm…a little voice inside his head, that had sounded suspiciously like Larra, had reminded him that they still had to believe that they might survive the Long Night, and that…they couldn’t risk losing their craftsmen - their blacksmiths and joiners, crofters and carpenters, their hunters and tanners, cooks, butchers and millers. They had to go on planning for the future - even if it might never come.

Because there had to be that glimmer, that faint spark of _hope_ …that maybe it would - maybe they _could_ survive, maybe it would be _enough_ …

They had to be prudent about who they risked.

So, a census. To figure out who…who they sacrificed.

Larra had called them her ‘designated survivors’.

As children, Maester Luwin had taught them cyvasse. Robb had been especially brilliant at battle-strategy; Larra, cunning and cautious about committing to anything that would cause significant loss of life. And she always had her list. Her designated survivors - those who would be intrinsic in rebuilding after any significant conflict. And because it made sense, however horrible it sounded to place one person above any other, they had started to adapt their own strategies. Learning…they had always learned from each other, as much as Maester Luwin. Now, Jon was applying what he remembered from those cyvasse games, Larra’s strategies for minimum-casualties…

His father had always told them, never ask a stranger to fight for you. Jon was asking them to _die_ for him. For all the living North; for the _world_ , truly.

It was a hateful thing to have to do. But it was necessary.

 _But_ …

Eyes aching in the candlelight, he knew it was well past the hour of the wolf. He’d get no rest, though, until he had faced the Night King. One way, or another, he’d rest.

If it didn’t leave him sick to his stomach to think what might become of Sansa if he did, Jon would have given in to the desire simply to _rest_ a good long while ago…

He’d been fighting since he left Winterfell, and even his return home had been marked with violence that had reached legendary status - the Battle of the Bastards. He had avenged the Red Wedding… He had fought on the moors before Winterfell; and now he fought almost daily in the Great Hall, arguing with, and trying to convince, his lords and ladies… Trying to convince them that a threat they didn’t believe was real, could barely imagine, _was_ real, and set on ending everything they held precious to them…

He was _still_ fighting.

He almost wouldn’t mind being one of those sacrificed to stop the Night King. If it meant his work was finished, his fight was over…if it meant Sansa was safe at Winterfell…but it was Sansa that kept him from giving in. As he’d said to her, the day she arrived at Castle Black, if he didn’t watch over her, Father’s ghost would come back and murder him…

After his own men had murdered him, his _brothers_ , all Jon had wanted when they dragged him back was to walk away. To leave the Wall, leave the North, and just… _rest_. Stop fighting.

 _Go back to that cave_ …

It was the flicker of red hair. Sometimes he caught Sansa in the right light, and the glint of her hair shining like firelight made his heart clench in his chest, feeling the knife twist a second time. Like now.

She was no warrior, but sometimes, Jon could be forgiven for thinking Sansa shared some of Ygritte’s ferocity. _Tenacity_ , sternness tempered by her pain and strength and grief and hope, paired with the elegance he always remembered as intrinsic in Sansa. She had always been beautiful; now there was something cold and untouchable about her, something hostile and strong and warning, gentle to him and protective. _Wolflike_. She was more beautiful than he even remembered. And he hated - _hated_ \- that she sewed herself into her new dresses, lashed in by fiddly straps and thick leather belts and sharp needle-pointed chains, layers and layers of fabric - to protect herself. Here, at Winterfell, in her own home, she still came to the solar in the dark of night, her hair casually braided over her shoulder like a wolf’s tail, as she would wear it to bed, but she was shrouded in a heavy wool cloak, wrapped around her quilted dress, into which she was tightly laced.

Jon, a practical Northman, with experience at the Wall, wore the same leathers in Father’s solar as he wore on the battlefield: Sansa wore her quilted dress, tufted with raven-feathers, a tiny needle in her fist and leather bracing her waist, cinching everything in, the belt difficult to unbuckle, the dress impossible to wriggle out of. Even now, months later, she would not walk the halls of their home without her armour. Not even to see him.

Not when Littlefinger lingered, gazing hungrily at the Lady of Winterfell.

Jon wasn’t stupid. His worst imaginings couldn’t compare to what Sansa had endured - and she _had_ ; she had survived horrors beyond imagining, and proven that she was strong, and could never be broken… And he couldn’t bear to ask her; knew she would never tell him. How could she? He couldn’t put into words what it felt to be murdered: How could she tell him how it felt to be tortured?

In spite of all that…here she was. The Lady of Winterfell. The Stark in Winterfell.

If it hadn’t been for her, they never would have taken back their home. They never could have protected the North. Never could have united to fight the Night King.

He would have left the Wall and never looked back. He was _tired_.

And then she had appeared in the yard, tired and cold and pained, the look on her face like her heart was breaking with relief at the sight of him. He’d never forget that day in the yard, as the snow fell gently, in her grey dress, and her bright braid draped over her shoulder, the way her blue eyes filled with tears warm against his lips as he kissed her frozen cheeks, the way she shivered in his arms as he held her so tightly he could feel how thin she was, and saw the grimace of pain she tried to hide. _Sansa_.

Sansa had changed _everything_.

Lady Melisandre had warmed his heart again with her Lord’s magic: But Sansa had given him a second lease on life. Given him a dose of whatever it was he had been fighting so hard to reclaim, something he couldn’t even name or describe but knew when the well was running dry… He was _tired_ : She gave him strength. Reminded him of his purpose.

Her gentle smile, now edged with steel, gave him that spark he sometimes needed. Whether she was frustrating him to the point of distraction, or making him laugh as she choked on bad ale… He sometimes needed the reminder _why_ he had been fighting so hard.

He’d been so tired for so long.

“You should be in bed,” he sighed, kneading his aching eyes.

“I wonder _you’re_ not in bed,” Sansa sighed, bolting the door to the solar behind her. She strode around Winterfell in the quilted dresses she sewed herself, but at least, with him, if him alone, she peeled off the heavy cloak she draped around herself, revealing herself. She lay the cloak over one of the chairs in front of his work-table, and went to stoke the fire. She turned to him, her hair glowing in the dark. “You’re going to fall off your horse if you don’t rest.”

“I’ll try and get a couple of hours’ sleep before dawn,” Jon muttered, shrugging unconcernedly, though his body ached. The gods knew he’d stayed awake longer, doing more arduous tasks than deciphering Maester Wolkan’s tiny scribble. If he’d stopped to rest while scaling the Wall, he’d have been flat as a drop-scone at the bottom of it…

Sometimes he felt as if he was _still_ scaling that impossible sheer wall, no end in sight, his body aching and his mind ensnared by thoughts of pure terror, exhilaration - _determination_ …

Sometimes he forgot that he’d seen the dawn break as he reached the top, and never seen anything more welcome. It was the climb he remembered; the kiss lay in the realms of his memory where he daren’t venture to linger too long, or be lost. That was where Ygritte lived. And Robb, and Larra, and Bran and Rickon and Arya and Father and every brother he’d lost since he left Winterfell those years ago.

“Perhaps some mulled wine would help?” Sansa pondered. It was their drink of choice, here at home, at Winterfell: She couldn’t abide the taste of ale, and he would drink anything. He’d had to teach her how to prepare it, though, the Northern way, after so long in the capital - the same way he used to prepare it for Lord Commander Mormont. It was a ritual they had: If something was bothering her, Sansa would come and sit in the solar, prepare mulled wine, and share a single cup with him. A single cup, no more, no less, passed between them: She never finished it if it had gone cold - he hated to waste it, so drank it even if it was cold, and the spices tasted strange on his tongue.

The wine was Sansa’s way of getting him away from his work. He had to set the papers down, and join her at the high-backed settle before the fire. It was freshly-upholstered with a cushioned leather seat, the high back engraved, at Sansa’s request, with a motif of the Battle of the Bastards. No flayed men, though: It showed the Starks’ conquest, the Free Folk, Wun Wun the last giant, and the Knights of the Vale riding in. Their enemies were featureless, their uniforms unmarked, no sigil upon their tattered banners. As Sansa had told her husband, all memory of him would disappear: She would ensure it. Feather-stuffed cushions embroidered with rich symbolism, gifts from the Northern ladies ensconced at Winterfell for their safety, made the settle one of the most comfortable places to sit in the solar. One of Sansa’s heavy knitted blankets, and a fur throw, Sansa’s little footstool, made it the cosiest Jon remembered ever being, with Sansa tucked up beside him, passing a cup of mulled wine between them as they watched the flames flickering back into life in the grate. Sometimes Sansa would sew, but she didn’t sing anymore.

Usually she relaxed; tonight, she was sat bolt upright, hand around the steaming cup of wine, staring at the fire as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. The flickering light illuminated her eyes, stark and far-away, her face bleached of expression.

“I don’t want you to go,” she finally said, softly, gazing at the flames. He grimaced as he sipped the wine, though the flavours coated his tongue and fire warmed his belly.

“I know,” he told her grimly. In the quiet of the room, he could hear Sansa’s breathing, quick and shallow; he could read her well, now. Knew she was anxious. Perhaps even _terrified_ for him. Dragonstone. In his role as Lord Commander, he had been so focused on the Free Folk and the Night King that he’d rarely given second thought to the politics of the world beyond the New Gift, news brought by ravens, or by the wandering crows bringing fresh recruits. And while his gaze was turned north, a new Queen had appeared in the south. _Another_ queen. There were two, now. The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Cersei Lannister; and the Targaryen girl they called the Mother of Dragons, who had made berth at Dragonstone after setting sail from her colony in Essos, declaring herself rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

A Targaryen. The Mad King’s daughter.

She had taken Dragonstone, her birth-right - and an inconvenience: They needed obsidian. Needed a mountain of it. And now the Targaryen girl sat atop it, with, they said, an army of Unsullied, a horde of Dothraki screamers and three _dragons_.

Ser Davos thought Jon might convince her to ally with them: Jon was sceptical.

Daenerys Stormborn had not sailed across half the world to commit her troops to fighting the Night King: She had come for the Iron Throne.

To reclaim what was snatched from her family after centuries of their madness and brutality finally came to a head. Father and son had almost destroyed the Seven Kingdoms to get what they wanted.

Jon Arryn had called his banners to protect his two wards, Ned and Robert: But it was Aerys and Rhaegar who, combined, provoked a rebellion that overthrew a dynasty - their own. One burned father and son alive: The other, abducted and abused their daughter, their sister. Rickard and Brandon and Lyanna…

All dead because of one Targaryen or another.

And Jon had to go and ask for help from the last of them, and offer nothing in return: He could not yield the North - _would_ not. Not to a Targaryen. Not when his adviser, not when every lord and lady in the North remembered the Mad King, remembered Jon’s grandfather, his uncle, his aunt, and vehemently opposed Jon risking the journey south to meet the Mad King’s daughter - but they hadn’t seen, couldn’t know, only his brothers and the Free Folk who’d fought and fled them ever could: He’d risk the dragon _fire_ if it meant getting them dragon _glass_.

Or they were all lost.

It didn’t mean he wanted to go. Didn’t mean he didn’t dread leaving Winterfell - and Sansa. Not after all the horrors and years they had endured to return to each other.

“You know I’ve no choice,” he sighed heavily. Truly, he knew, instinctively, that Daenerys Stormborn would never capitulate to one of his lords or ladies. She had declared herself Queen of the Seven Kingdoms: Jon had been named King of one of those kingdoms, independent of the Iron Throne. The Targaryen queen would just as likely incinerate any emissary than consider gifting them dragonglass for their trouble in journeying so far south. “I wouldn’t be going if I could think of any other way…we _need_ the obsidian.”

“But do you have to go yourself?”

“You know I do,” Jon said gently. “If it costs my life to secure the dragonglass, so be it; I’m just one man among many. Just because I’m your brother doesn’t mean my name should be added on to the list of designated survivors.”

“The what?” Sansa asked, frowning delicately. Jon sighed, and reached behind him for the maester’s census. He showed Sansa the scribbles, and his own annotations. “When we were still in the schoolroom, Maester Luwin taught us cyvasse. A war-game of strategy and conquest and risk… Larra…used to keep a list, her ‘designated survivors’, the people she’d never risk, even in the event of open war, when every last man counted. She used to say you have to strategize as if you’ll win; but assume that the effort to rebuild will be more arduous than the war itself. Especially if all your tradesmen and their apprentices are dead.”

“Jon…you’re the King,” Sansa murmured, eyes widening. “We need you.”

“You don’t need me,” Jon said, shaking his head. “Not now. I’ve done my part. Winter is coming, and you’ll meet it when it does. You, and all the living North…” Sansa stared at him, her eyes glowing in the firelight; she looked at once furious and heartbroken. He frowned, biting his lip, gazing back at her, realizing. “Sansa…you know what to do, if I don’t return. You can’t let anything distract you, _nothing_ , not even my death, not vengeance or politics - nothing else matters. Not Cersei, not Daenerys; only this fight. We fight for the living.”

“Jon…”

“If I don’t return, work with Lord Royce and Lord Manderly, they’re experienced commanders; work with Karsi and Tormund, they’ve faced the wights and the Night King before,” Jon said, reaching out to rub her shoulder; she looked so distraught, overwhelmed. But why shouldn’t he plan for his execution? He needed to make sure she understood - it wasn’t about southern politics. It was about the _living_. “They’ll make sure the threat isn’t underestimated… You remember what I taught you. ” Sansa blinked, and he gave her a look. “Where is it?” She grimaced subtly, but reached down and unsheathed the slender dagger tucked into a neat sheath sewn into her thick wool stockings. “You’re still not happy to conceal it on you.”

“It’s…unfamiliar,” Sansa said, delicately holding the slender blade. It wasn’t much, nothing to Long Claw, but after the little needle he’d first seen her wear on the chain around her neck, he’d asked one of the new smiths to forge it in likeness of a Braavosi _stiletto_ blade, a sister to Arya’s Needle, delicate but deadly. Sansa eyed the blade critically as the firelight flickered over the steel. “I don’t think it would do me much good, anyway.”

“Those who don’t know how to use them often end up dying on them,” Jon said grimly, taking the knife from Sansa to twirl it around his fingers. She watched his fingers move, frowning subtly, as if trying to work out how he handled the blade so confidently.

“Larra knew how to wield a weapon…Arya was training in King’s Landing,” Sansa said, and a muscle ticked in her jaw as she clenched it, her eyes turning cold and hard as she stared at the blade.

Jon flinched, and sighed heavily. “Lady Brienne said she saw Arya alive…and Larra - she went beyond the Wall with Bran.” Sam had told him, years ago, that he had come across Bran and Hodor and Larra at the Night Fort…the mutiny had just happened at Craster’s Keep, and he’d been set on avenging Jeor Mormont - and preventing scouts from Mance Rayder’s army from finding the brothers who had betrayed them, feeding them information to the wildling army… He’d returned, and Sam had told him: And he’d grieved more, perhaps, for the fate of Larra and Bran and Hodor, far in the desolate North, than he had about Father, or Robb. He could only imagine their fates; but he _knew_ what happened to those who surrendered to the storm.

“Mance Rayder united the Free Folk to march south and flee the Night King’s army; and Larra and Bran went north headed straight for them…” Sansa said thoughtfully, that stern, thoughtful bite to her tone. “Do you think Larra could fight her way through the dead - even our _Larra_?”

Jon smiled grimly, at the implication - that _their_ Larra was fierce beyond belief, a she-wolf of Winterfell if ever there was one…the faith in their sister… But against the Night King? Did Jon have any hope she and Bran had survived the true North with only a pair of direwolves and a simple giant?

“Sansa,” he said, pained, because thinking about Larra hurt. “I’m not worried about the Night King. Not while the Wall still stands between us and the dead… I worry about you with _him_.” Sansa’s eyes locked on his, and he knew she understood. How could she not; they had been discussing Lord Baelish’s presence at Winterfell for weeks. “I know he wants you. Men like him have a way of always getting what they want.”

“If Littlefinger got what he wanted, you’d be burned alive on Dragonstone, Cersei and Daenerys Targaryen would tear each other to ribbons, and at the end of it, I’d be sat on a little stool gazing up lovingly at him on the Iron Throne with my belly fat with his heir,” Sansa said tartly, making Jon raise his eyebrows. It had never been like Sansa to be blunt: She had always been a romantic, spending her afternoons daydreaming about handsome princes and the dozen babies she’d name after her favourite heroines from the songs. It wasn’t easy, not with who she was now, not wrapped in her armour, with her simple braids and furs and stern beauty, but sometimes Jon _did_ forget; and it was jarring to hear this clever, curt, fierce Sansa speak plainly…but after what she had endured…

“ _Sansa_ ,” he winced, because it wasn’t like her to talk like this, and he knew she had to have been thinking a lot about this, more than he’d thought. He was worried the Night King would destroy the North, the world: She was worried Littlefinger would destroy their family, just as it was rebuilding.

“You can be certain if we survive the Night King, you will not long survive Littlefinger,” Sansa said plainly, her eyes not accusatory but solemn, warning. “You’re in the way.”

“And you’re the key to the North,” Jon said, gazing back at her. Anyone would be a fool not to realise how beautiful Sansa was; and how talented. While Jon prepared for war, she ruled Winterfell. He didn’t want her worried about anything else, not him, not Littlefinger. Just the people. Their people, who _mattered_ , after all was said and done. “I could take him south with me.”

“No. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near that Targaryen girl,” Sansa said coolly. “He’s far too dangerous to let him leave Winterfell!”

“Alright…then I’m trusting _you_ to do what you need to. The North is yours, remember that. You act in the North’s interests. And you protect yourself, from any threat,” Jon said solemnly, gazing into Sansa’s eyes, as he handed back the knife. “Promise me…if you need to use it, you won’t hesitate.”

Sansa sighed, but accepted the knife back, relaxing slightly. He could tell just by the way she held it that she wasn’t happy it rested in her grasp. She was not a natural swordswoman, and never would be; but he’d been determined she have some way of defending herself if it fell upon Sansa alone to keep herself alive. “I promise… Perhaps I shall ask Podrick for some private training; I watched him training with Lady Brienne on our way to the Wall. They are both sworn to me. And he is discreet.”

Jon nodded slowly. He’d watched the quiet squire, determinedly training with Lady Brienne day and night. There was something quietly dignified about the way he just kept trying, no matter what, unfazed by setbacks, learning from them. Lady Brienne seemed content to have him around; and as Sansa said, he had journeyed with her to the Wall. Jon knew he had been squire to the Imp when Sansa was briefly married to him. That was interesting in itself; but Jon had no time to pick apart Sansa’s marriage to Lord Tyrion, or question how his squire had ended up in the service of a Stormlord’s daughter, so far North. “Aye, he seems a good man,” Jon said, because he’d know a bad one a mile off. Sansa tucked the knife into her stocking again, her skirts billowing over her knees, and she rested against the settle, close to him, watching the fire burning low again. She didn’t move to stoke the embers, and neither did he. He could almost fall asleep, and Sansa’s breathing slowed, relaxed. He ruined it.

“Sansa…if I don’t return…if there is no obsidian… _fire_ is the only way to fight the armies of the dead.”

Sansa reached over, and placed her hand over his. Her fingers were long and white and elegant, unscarred; her nails were clean and neat. A lady’s hands. But meticulous, and strong: How many gowns had she sewn, how many tunics had she gifted him, emblazoned with the Stark direwolf? Needles were her weapon: She used them to create armour, to illustrate warnings, show her story on her sleeves. They didn’t look a traditional warrior’s hands, but there was skill and precision in them, courage and tenacity.

She squeezed his hand, and turned to gaze at him solemnly, her eyes glinting with fervour. “We’ll do it, Jon. We’ll stop the Night King. We’ll protect the North.”

“I wouldn’t entrust it to anyone else…” he said earnestly, placing his hand on top of hers and stroking his thumb tenderly. Rare moments like this, he cherished; how long had it been since he had contact like this with someone he loved? He remembered cuddling with Bran and Rickon; mussing Arya’s hair; Larra sprawling over his bed annoying him, and burrowing under the covers during storms, cosy and content and protected… Never many memories of Sansa, but then, she’d been her mother’s daughter, had learned disdain for Jon at Lady Catelyn’s knee… He savoured their moments now. The embers burned low, twinkling like half-forgotten stars, and coolness started to seep through the chamber - not true cold; the natural hot-springs piped through the walls of Winterfell made it a refuge during the winter years, comfortable even in the worst snowstorms. But it was enough; and Jon had to pick his head up, finally exhausted, and rub his eyes. He gently roused Sansa from a doze, and they clambered off the settle, regretting it; it _was_ a very comfortable seat, and Jon was glad Sansa had commissioned it for the solar. It had been her second gift to him - the first, the cloak she had stitched for him, just like the one Father used to wear, the Stark sigil embossed on the leather. She’d had the settle made as somewhere they could sit and spend time together - somewhere that wasn’t around a table spread with siege maps and war preparations. Something that reminded Sansa, at least, of cosy snowy evenings ensconced in warmth and candlelight and heavy blankets and the sound of Father’s soft laugh and her mother humming songs of the Faith, her brothers and sister playing at the hearth, Robb’s long legs outstretched as he and Theon laughed at a joke she was too young to understand… Jon had always been made to feel an imposter on nights like those; he often receded to his own chamber, where usually Larra would have found him, with a scroll from the library, a flagon of ale and a game for them to play, cuddled up together, the two bastards of Winterfell.

Larra and Robb and Father and Lady Catelyn and Bran and Rickon and Arya, even Theon - they were all _gone_.

There was no-one now but them. Just him and Sansa. It was theirs, now; their home. They had fought for it; and Sansa seemed determined to remind Jon that it _was_ his home, and always had been.

“Will you see me off in the morning?” he asked, pinching some of the candles still flickering stubbornly. He shouldn’t use so many, he knew.

“Of course I will…” Sansa gazed at him, and Jon turned to look at her, tall and queenly, shrouded in her dark dress, her hair glinting like the dying firelight. Her expression was stark, almost tearful. “Promise you’ll return.”

“I promise.”

“I really wish you didn’t have to go…but I understand why you feel you must,” Sansa finally acknowledged, on a long sigh, as if it cost her to admit it. “If this Targaryen girl is anything as prideful as Cersei, she would consider it an insult to be met by anyone less than the King in the North. She’ll do all she can to undermine and manipulate you, Jon, intimidate you. She has Unsullied and Dothraki and dragons.”

“I know.”

“But the best weapon she has is between her legs.”

“ _Sansa_!” It caught him off-guard. But she looked stern and unrelenting, and he gaped at her.

“It’s true. She can’t have come this far in a world ruled by men without learning how to control them, and she can’t use her dragons for delicate political negotiations,” Sansa said sharply, any exhaustion forgotten: She seemed determined to impress the seriousness of this on him. “Never forget that you’re in control; that no matter what she offers, or how she approaches you, what she demands of you - you let her believe she is manipulating you to get what she wants.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation - so what would you suggest I do?”

After a moment’s consideration, Sansa gave him a measuring look, a sweep of her blue eyes up and down him, before they narrowed subtly. “Give her what she wants. Without giving her anything.”

“You were in the capital too long; you’re starting to pose riddles like the southerners.” He frowned, though he knew what she was implying.

“I can’t speak plainer: If she wants you in her bed hoping you’ll cede the North, by all means, ride the dragon - but never forget why you’re there,” Sansa said, and Jon gaped, lost for words. He might even be blushing; he was glad at least the candles were almost extinguished.

“You don’t half frighten me sometimes,” he admitted wearily.

“Because you know I’m right.”

“Aye. Sometimes I miss that little girl who sang and danced and dreamt of having a dozen babies in a sunlit southern castle…” He sighed, and reached forward, to take Sansa’s hand. She gazed up at him, sorrowful of the girl that was lost, but stubborn. “But I prefer this woman before me. I know I’ve made the right choice - I want you to know that. No matter what happens, I don’t regret going south, and I’d never second-guess leaving the North to you. Here.”

And he handed her the document he’d kept hidden for weeks, until it was ready, until he could give it to her, without promises that might never be fulfilled. She’d had too many of those in her life.

“What’s this?” He brought the last candle closer.

“I had Maester Wolkan draw it up. The Northern lords and ladies have all signed it and witnessed. I’m not just leaving you in charge while I’m gone. Sansa Stark, I hereby name you my heir. The heir to Winterfell, the heir to the Northern kingdom,” Jon said solemnly. “In the event of my death, or my abdication, you will succeed me as Queen in the North. Copies have already been sent by raven to all the High Lords of Westeros.” Sansa’s lips parted, her eyes widening, and she blinked from Jon’s face to the parchment sealed with the sigils of the Northern lords and ladies, Jon’s scrawl beneath the Stark seal.

Her lips parted, and closed, and she blinked, and he thought her hands might be trembling, making the parchment shiver. He offered her a kind smile.

“Daenerys Targaryen kills me, and she’ll have the She-Wolf of Winterfell to deal with - and after she’s finished destroying the Night King, a dragon will seem like child’s play,” he said playfully, and Sansa’s lips quivered toward a smile.

“You have such faith in me.”

“That little girl I remember is gone,” Jon said, sadly, because though they had never been close, though she had been a brat at times and a dreamer, he still regretted all that Sansa had gone through that had killed that innocent girl in her. “Sansa Stark will weather any storm, and show her strength through it.”

He rubbed his face, and made his way to the door, unbolting it. The guard stood at attention beyond, a torch flickering in the brazier. “Jon…you’ve not changed,” Sansa said, and Jon glanced over his shoulder at Sansa. “You’re still just as brave and gentle and strong as I remember.”

Jon smiled softly. It was one of the kindest things she had ever said to him.

“Let’s get some rest, while we can,” he said gruffly, a pain in his stomach at the thought of what tomorrow would bring. To leave Winterfell, to leave her…to play supplicant to a Targaryen…

A Targaryen queen.

The Mad King’s daughter.

 _The best weapon she has is between her legs_ …

Larra had once teased that the sharpest blades are sheathed in the softest pouches.

Forbidden swords, a woman’s greatest weapon - if she was denied an education - was her body. And she had three brothers: Larra had appreciated the way men thought, and how easily manipulated they were. She had been much more tongue-in-cheek about phrasing it than Sansa, but the principle was the same.

Women had to find other ways of getting what they wanted, without swords - or _dragons_ \- and few things were as effective in making men lose reason as lust.

They said the Dragon Queen was beautiful. In the back of his mind, Larra snorted that _powerful women always are beautiful, aren’t they, even when they’re not_.

If Sansa was right…a beautiful woman who knew her way around a man, and had no compunction about going after exactly what she wanted - no matter what got in the way…or who… He half wished he was being sent to treat with the Night King.

At least Jon knew exactly what he was getting with the White Walkers. Non-negotiable, wholesale slaughter. No politics, no pleas, no ancient history or guile…just death. It was comforting, to know that’s all the Night King wanted. Just death. The end of all things.

Not games. Games and seduction and dragons and ancient oaths and madmen and promises he couldn’t keep to the sister he desperately wanted to protect.

He was venturing south. He was headed into territory Sansa had gracefully navigated for years: How could she distil years of experience into a few days’ preparation for him? Treating with Mance Rayder, negotiating with Stannis Baratheon were very different to meeting with the Mad King’s daughter. There was too much history; too much at risk. And in spite of all that, he had to do it. He had to _try_ …

“Goodnight, Sansa,” he said softly, her hair glinting as she smiled softly and turned: He watched her long braid sway down her back like a wolf’s tail as she walked away, and he couldn’t help but think, the little girl of his memory was gone…and in her place, a direwolf prowled Winterfell, protecting her family, cunning and cautious and loyal.


	7. Progress

**Valyrian Steel**

_07_

_Progress_

* * *

“My lady?” The sound of footsteps stopped, and she sighed, drawing her gaze away from the gates, through which Jon had disappeared. Lord Royce stood before her, breastplate glinting in the insipid sunlight, his yellow cape wrapped around him for warmth, the hem stained by the snow and the mucky yard. Lord Royce was a guest of the King in the North; he was also earning his bed and board through contribution to the war-efforts.

The snow was falling gently, and she felt eyes upon her; in the yard below, Lord Baelish lurked. Always lurking, always watching. The Stark and Manderly banners barely out of view on the horizon of the misty moors, he was already plotting how to use Jon’s absence to his advantage.

Sansa took a breath, and raised her chin, and met Lord Royce’s eye. “Hopeful as I am that Jon will return to Winterfell, we must continue to prepare for the war as though he may not. I was not tutored in the arts of war, Lord Royce, as I am sure you will appreciate,” she said, a tiny smile lingering at the corners of her lips, and Lord Royce gave her an indulgent half-smile, the closest he ever came to mirth. “As Lady of Winterfell, I must learn. I wish to know every detail about the siege preparations.”

“Very good, my lady,” Lord Royce inclined his head, ever courteous. If he felt a woman had no place at a war-council, he did not betray his thoughts. The truth of the matter was, they needed _everyone_ to work toward the common goal of defeating the Night King: And that meant that Sansa now had to learn, and learn very quickly, how to plan for war. “Shall we begin now?”

“Yes, I think so,” Sansa agreed, letting out a gust of breath. She was no military strategist - no Robb. She had no experience in fighting, like Jon, no experience in defending anything - least of all herself. As Cersei had once muttered drunkenly to her in Maegor’s Holdfast, ‘ _l was taught to smile and sing and please_ ’… Sansa had been raised a lady. But she had learned how to rule. And her weapons were her mind, her words, her courtesy, the accumulation of her experiences. Under her influence, and while Jon was consumed with thoughts of the upcoming battle - and rightly so, if all he had told her was indeed true - Winterfell was starting to regain the look and feel of the castle, the _home_ , she remembered. In spite of the war preparations and the threat of siege, the choke-hold of terror that held its grip on Winterfell for months was starting to ease.

The smallfolk were settling in; they were becoming comfortable. Content. They were working, of course, always working, but they talked happily amongst themselves as they worked, smiled at her as she strode past with Lord Royce. She heard some of them singing, and _laughter_. There had been none of that, before; she remembered it, during her childhood. Under her parents’ rule, people had been cared for, and had known they were safe, valued, that they were protected, and provided for. They were starting to remember. There was a Stark in Winterfell once more.

And they _were_ recovering; they were regaining strength and confidence after the horrors they had endured… And yet, though the castle began to take on its old feeling of safety and familiarity, the war preparations could not be ignored. As the castle prepared for winter, so too it prepared for war, and Sansa couldn’t help think ahead, as she was guided through the preparations, concealing how unsettling it was to realise she was completely underprepared. Her time in King’s Landing had taught her that courtesy was her best asset for her own survival. She had learned that truth or lies in the context of her courtesies could be used as a weapon effective as Jon’s Valyrian-steel sword - hadn’t Cersei used such weapons to murder her father? Cersei had been Sansa’s first instructor; Tyrion her second, indirectly; and Littlefinger the last, actively tutoring her. They had taught her to hone the natural instincts that had kept her alive, to wage wars of the mind, to play the game of thrones.

As she was guided through the castle, given a brief, first view of the War Council’s plans to defend Winterfell against incursion, Sansa started to understand that they were not so very different, the game of thrones and the arts of war. The skills of courtesy and mental dexterity she had honed in King’s Landing were directly applicable to military strategy, though, she acknowledged, perhaps not against the Night King, who shared none of the motivations of the likes of Cersei or Littlefinger or even Jon.

War was about _anticipation_. What was it Littlefinger had advised her weeks ago, about learning to fight every enemy in her mind, all of the time - to consider everyone her friend, everyone her enemy, to anticipate their motivations and reactions - that, to learn to think that way, there would come a time when everything that happened would eventually become something she had seen before. It sounded rather unexciting, but then perhaps there was safety and certainty in that.

Sansa couldn’t help but think that the Night King was a far less dangerous enemy than the likes of Cersei or Daenerys Targaryen: His sole purpose was to destroy Man. No tricks, no politics, no games, just his purpose. They knew what he wanted, and how he would go about getting it. There was some comfort to knowing exactly what the enemy wanted. She knew what her enemies wanted. If they survived it, they still had to contend with Littlefinger, Cersei Lannister, and this new Dragon Queen. It was starting to look like the War of the Five Kings all over again, only with women fighting tooth and nail to take the Iron Throne - and destroy everything in their paths to get it.

If they were to survive the wars to come, if she did not want to rely on the wisdom of others to make her decisions for her, if Jon did not return, if…if she alone survived, Sansa needed to learn how to understand _war_ waged on a grander scale, on battlefields and in cities, war waged with weapons. And Lord Royce would teach her: To ignore a proud man was dangerous, but an experienced man put to work felt respected. And was more easily wielded as a weapon himself.

She was aware that few in Winterfell distrusted or despised Littlefinger more than Lord Royce, except for Sansa herself. She was also aware that since she had been complicit in concealing from the Lords Declarant of the Vale, of whom Lord Royce was paramount, that Littlefinger had murdered Lady Arryn, Littlefinger had what he needed to implicate Sansa if he so chose. He had what he needed, a half-truth to build lies upon to tear away everything she and Jon were building.

Sansa was certain what she had told Jon was correct: If they survived the Long Night, they would not long survive Littlefinger. _Jon_ , King in the North, would not long survive Littlefinger.

Littlefinger, who had conspired to murder the Lord of the Vale with Lysa. Littlefinger, who had murdered Lady Arryn, who had manipulated Lord Arryn’s heir to take control of the Vale, usurping regency from the Vale’s most loyal families, engaging the Knights in open war against their better judgement…

If Littlefinger wanted to use her as a piece in his game, well…he underestimated just what lengths she would go to protect herself. Protect _Jon_. She knew his game. She knew what he wanted. Sansa knew that Littlefinger was just as dangerous now as he had always been, just as Cersei, so far to the south beyond snowdrifts and storms, was capable of doing more harm than they would ever dare contemplating. She was as ruthless as her father, and after Tommen’s suicide, had nothing but her life to lose - and she would fight to the death for her survival. At the moment, Littlefinger was far more dangerous than Cersei; he had caution, patience and… ‘ _Fight every battle everywhere, always, in your mind. Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before_ …’

The advice he had given her, perhaps the first earnest insight he had entrusted to anyone into the way he viewed the world - the way in which he worked and the way in which he would rebuild the world in likeness of the one envisioned… Littlefinger was meticulous in crafting lies built upon terrible truths. She knew he wanted her; and he wanted the Iron Throne. She knew he was ruthless and meticulous and, as Jon had said the night before he departed Winterfell, Littlefinger got what he wanted.

She wondered very much whether Littlefinger thought she had the nerve to start playing the game against him. Whether, ensconced in her family home, the ghosts of her honourable parents drifting about the halls, he might believe she could be lulled once again into his confidence, once again used and manipulated to get what he wanted…

“I never did thank you, my lord,” Sansa said, hours later, as she and Lord Royce sat in the Great Hall to take their evening meal, “for remaining at Winterfell after the Battle of the Bastards.”

“A single battle does not define the war,” Lord Royce advised her, his eyes shrewd as they rested on Littlefinger, turning his nose up at his companions. He was not, and never was, invited to dine at the high table with Jon and Sansa: They followed Father’s practice of inviting strangers to dine beside them and learn of their lives - and of their contribution efforts to the care and keeping of the castle - and now, the war-effort.

“I had been led to believe that sometimes, that was indeed the case,” Sansa frowned gently, watching the servants doling out stew. The hall was filled with the savoury scent of beef and barley stew, laden with the colourful root vegetables southerners considered fodder for animals, and which were essential to Northern households for their survival. The stew was rich and hearty and served with crusty sourdough bread. Northerners maintained austere households, and winter had come: Sansa would indulge no-one’s vanity that they deserved choice cuts of meat - not when there was so little of it, and so far to stretch it. Stew and bread was more than most smallfolk could boast at their table, and it was good, flavourful food, rich and hearty and warmed the belly. It was what they needed; if they wanted rib of beef or spiced roast goose, or lobsters gently poached in butter, the guests of the King in the North were welcome to try and outrace the storms and head south.

“It happens, on occasion. One decisive victory may turn an army against its commanders, the chaos costs the war…or a significant loss among the commanders - Rhaegar Targaryen fell at the Trident and the war was lost for the loyalists… But as we’ve seen, my lady, there are many other forces at work during wartime beyond military campaigns,” Lord Royce muttered heavily, alluding to the Red Wedding. She wondered for how long her family’s tragedies would remain a warning to Westeros, one of the greatest horrors of recent history. The Red Wedding, and the Bombing of Baelor’s Sept. Two defining moments of perhaps the last century, distilled within the same decade.

Sansa smiled gently. “All the same, it is not the responsibility of the Knights of the Vale to protect the North, my lord. No matter how much your presence is appreciated,” she said. “Lord Arryn committed your aid to help my family reclaim Winterfell; you need not have remained so long.”

“Lord Arryn was a great man. I never knew another Lord of the Vale until his son inherited the title,” Lord Royce said staunchly, though Sansa heard the undercurrent of disappointment. Sansa’s cousin had made little impact on Sansa when they had met, beyond her shame at smacking him for his brattishness - he had reminded her a little too much of the spoiled child she had once been. It was not truly his own fault; her Aunt Lysa had raised him as she saw fit…the same way her mother saw fit to raise her own children, ignoring the bastard she should have loved as a son.

The bastard who had avenged her. Had avenged them all.

The bastard who had stepped back, and acknowledged that no taunts and no loss of life on a battlefield, not even their brother’s death, could measure up to the torment inflicted upon Sansa for months. He had stepped aside. The Northern way was the old way: Those who passed the sentence swung the sword. The Bastard of the Dreadfort had been sentenced to death by Sansa; Jon would not deprive her of her justice.

“It must grieve you, to see the horrors Lord Arryn’s great House has endured recently,” Sansa said, her eyes lingering on Littlefinger as a servant doled out stew for them both. Fragrant steam rose from her bowl, savoury and mouth-watering.

“Not the legacy such a man had earned,” Lord Royce muttered grimly, averting his gaze to the trencher of warm sourdough bread being set between them by a servant, who placed a warmed earthen plate of small butter pats shaped as direwolves in front of Sansa. Dairy was rationed; it was an indulgence. She savoured it; she savoured her hearty meal, as any within the Hall or outside in the yards savoured theirs. She did not take it for granted that she was fed, and fed well; that she was warm, and _safe_. “Nor your own excellent parents’ legacies. I am glad only that Lord and Lady Stark may rest easy in the seven heavens, knowing their legacy is preserved in you, and in your father’s son.”

“It would make Jon proud to hear you say that,” Sansa said earnestly.

“He reminds me of your father a great deal,” Lord Royce said heavily; he had known Sansa’s father when he fostered at the Eyrie, had grown up with Ned Stark, and fought beside him during the Rebellion.

“And that would make Jon prouder still,” Sansa smiled earnestly; she knew it was true. All Jon had wanted since childhood was to be looked at and beloved as Robb was by their father. Sansa sometimes believed grief at parting with his lover to honour the marriage vows with her own mother had caused Ned Stark to be so conscious of how he favoured his two eldest sons - or perhaps he did not wish to incur his wife’s wrath toward Jon any more than it already was.

Both Sansa’s brothers had been murdered in cold-blood; only Jon had returned.

And he had gone south…to meet with a Targaryen, just as their grandfather and uncle had so long ago.

“It is as much love for Ned Stark as respect for Lord Arryn’s son that the Knights of the Vale remain the guests of the King in the North, my lady,” Lord Royce said.

“And the North shall not forget that the Vale came to its aid in its moment of greatest need,” Sansa assured Lord Royce. Lifting her spoon to her bowl, she gazed out over the Great Hall, the heads bowed over their bowls, the candles burning, people talking, and she rested her eyes on no-one in particular as she said, “Should the Vale ever find itself under threat, the North will do all in its power to protect the legacy of Lord Arryn.”

Lord Royce was quiet for a few moments, as they both tucked into their stew. It was rich and the meat was tender; she could taste mustard and ale and bay leaves and herbs, and the gravy-soaked carrots melted in her mouth. She let Lord Royce enjoy the first few mouthfuls of stew, let him _think_ over what she had said. A servant poured them a cup of red wine each. It was not served in crystal but she did not think Lord Royce minded; the wine paired beautifully with the rich stew. She hoped she would sleep well tonight, after spending all day marching about the castle in the crisp air. She could finally breathe again.

“If I may speak plainly, my lady,” Lord Royce said quietly, and she turned to him, lifting her cup of wine. “I do believe it beneficial that the Lord Protector of the Vale remain at Winterfell, as long as he is welcome, of course. The Lord of the Vale may yet live up to his father’s legacy.”

Sansa’s smile was grim. “I believe I understand you, my lord. However, the Mockingbird still plays its clever little games in the Vale, as it attempts to do in the North, flitting about from person to person, learning to mimic their voices, until it can speak for them.”

“A wonder no-one has yet cut out its tongue,” Lord Royce grumbled, and Sansa smiled into her stew.

“Better to kill the beast than let it live in anguish,” she said softly, and for some reason, she thought of Cersei. In killing Joffrey, Littlefinger had left a lioness wounded, vengeful, and far more dangerous because of it. Had the Tyrells wanted true power, they should never have left any Lannister alive: Cersei had always been the most dangerous of them, and now she sat upon the Iron Throne, queen in her own right after decades perched beside it, just out of reach. “A maimed beast is far more vicious.”

“I am sure your lord cousin would be devastated if anything were to happen to his Uncle Petyr,” Lord Royce said, and there was almost something snide in his tone that Sansa would not have believed if she had not heard it himself. The Knights of the Vale prided themselves on their honour, their reputations; but Littlefinger was dangerous, had inserted himself amongst the Vale and even now attempted to turn it against itself…as he had with Sansa’s aunt and mother…

“And yet in every battle there are casualties,” Sansa said grimly. “Best to ensure the losses do not cost us the war.”

“What is one little mockingbird to an Eyrie of falcons?” Lord Royce asked airily, and Sansa smiled into her supper.

“Or to a direwolf?” she said, and smiled as the servant took away their empty bowls. “However…mockingbirds have been known to kill a falcon…sometimes they prefer to hunt trout.”

Lord Royce stared at her, scowling, as the servants cleared away the savoury course. Few left anything in their bowls. She could see Lord Royce thinking it over: Realising what she implied - that his instincts when Lysa died were correct… “One does wish one’s instincts had been confirmed months ago, my lady.”

“I am ashamed to say that even direwolves may dread mockingbirds in certain circumstances,” Sansa said honestly. “They are dangerous, after all, but perhaps the direwolf should have remembered she has fangs… Perhaps the mockingbird was not as powerful as she had dreaded… Perhaps she need not have been sold to be the plaything of torturers who collected wolf-pelts for gold.”

“What is one little mockingbird to an Eyrie of falcons, and a pack of direwolves, even a small one?” Lord Royce asked, his face stormy. The Knights valued their honour: They had heard the whispers, the rumours, talk from the smallfolk about the atrocities committed to Lady Stark in her own home, atrocities so violent and traumatic, she had risked death in the snowstorms to flee to her brother at the Wall. No true knight would ever have betrayed Sansa: Any Knight would now avenge her honour. The honour Littlefinger had sold to her enemies. The honour she herself had avenged when she set loose the hounds.

Sansa raised her cup to clink it delicately against Lord Royce’s. “What indeed, Lord Royce…”

A small dessert followed, flaky pastry stretched thin and baked until crisp, wrapped around apple sliced small, dotted with sugar and butter and spices and raisins, dusted with sugar. It was rich and flavoursome, delicate after the heavy stew, tangy and sweet at once, and reminded Sansa sadly of Margaery, who had, after all, given Sansa many lessons even as she manipulated her way closer to Joffrey, manoeuvring Sansa aside to take the crown. Still, she had been the closest Sansa could call to a friend in King’s Landing, teaching her the high harp and even the new _pianoforte_ imported from Lys, coaxing her to join her cousins in embroidery and song, walking the dusty gardens of the Red Keep full of strange bird-calls and spiders and more than a few drunken fools.

Word had reached them of Tommen Baratheon’s suicide, one raven among many. Flinging himself from a window of the Red Keep while the crater that had been Baelor’s Great Sept still smouldered… The Lannisters who conspired to murder her family; the Tyrells who had the nerve to try to outmanoeuvre power from Cersei; the courtiers who mutely watched her torture at Joffrey’s hands. Dust.

She was glad the Sept was gone, and the monsters within it. Her father had been murdered on its steps. She could not think of the Seven without thinking of her father’s blood coating Ice as his body crumpled in pieces down the steps of the Sept.

It did not upset her nearly as much as she might have thought it would, thinking that Margaery was now no more than ash. Hadn’t Sansa merely been a tool for Margaery to utilise, to get what she wanted? And yet…

Courteous and smiling, Sansa could never compare with Margaery’s airy beauty, her bare arms and brazen prettiness, her overt sensuality paired with immaculate grace, sweet and tart and clever, concealing the thorns beneath soft petals, mesmerising and diverting, while the thorny vines encroached, entwining themselves unseen, clinging on for strength and support… But Sansa could emulate what she had learned from Margaery, to wield her smiles as weapons, make people fall in love with her, to…underestimate her. People had seen Margaery’s bare arms and high breasts and been diverted from how cleverly Margaery manipulated people, with smiles and twinkling blue eyes utterly lacking any guile.

Had not people also consistently underestimated Sansa’s ability to survive?

Here she was. At the high table at Winterfell, her home, regent for the King in the North. Named his heir…

It hurt her stomach, after the rich meal, in spite of the relief she felt after her layered conversation with Lord Royce, to think about Jon…that he had named her his heir, that he had _prepared_ that signed, sealed document without her knowledge - without Littlefinger even knowing about it… Had he? Or had Littlefinger kept quiet simply because it was in his interests to let Jon leave, naming Sansa heir to the North…because Sansa, as Queen in the North by her own right, was the first step in seven to claiming each of the great seats of Westeros… Remove Jon, and capitalise upon the strength of the Vale, backing his claim to Sansa…

She wondered, would Lord Baelish marry her beneath the weirwood tree? Clothe her in heavy white silk-velvet, drape a cloak of mockingbird feathers about her shoulders, and rape her as the snow fell outside the diamond-paned windows of Winterfell? She did not underestimate how dangerous Littlefinger was.

But perhaps he should not underestimate how silly Sansa had made herself appear to be, to survive King’s Landing, how foolish and naïve. She had been, at times, she freely admitted it; she had been duped more than once, in spite of her warnings to herself since the afternoon her father’s head rolled down the marble steps of Baelor’s Sept.

Jon had told her to do anything that was necessary to protect herself, and the North: And Littlefinger was, at present, the most deadly enemy she had to account for, at least, the most immediate threat. If Jon died in the south, and she became Queen, it would not be long before the Northern lords would start murmuring amongst themselves that the North needed an heir, and wouldn’t the Lord Protector of the Vale make a valuable ally in the wars to come against Cersei Lannister? They needed men…

If Jon fell to the Dragon Queen, Littlefinger would do his utmost to divert the war-efforts being arranged against the Night King; Sansa was certain Littlefinger would do all in his power to undermine Jon’s warnings...

By the time Jon returned, Sansa would have dealt with Littlefinger.

She would not allow him to take what he wanted from her, or from the North. If Jon did not return, she would not allow Littlefinger to undo everything Jon risked his life for - risked his life, to protect them, protect _her_.

Littlefinger had promised to teach her how to _lie_ , to play the game of thrones.

First Jon, and now Lord Royce, had started to teach her _military_ strategy. Lord Royce had taken her on a tour around the castle, the walls: He had shown her what was being done, but not only that, _why_ , and why it was important certain things had been done. He told her of the debates in the library, experienced commanders arguing with the wildings over their own experiences, and Jon, who had settled certain disputes in such a way, the Northmen - and, indeed, Lord Royce - mistook him for Ned Stark.

She had been learning. All day, she learned to ask questions. To be critical. To consider things. The implications of certain decisions being made, certain strategies favoured over others. The strategies decided upon were tailored to their enemy, to the Night King. On a grander scale, battle preparations had to be _adaptable_.

She had to learn to use what she had to get what she wanted.

She knew what Littlefinger wanted: The Iron Throne, and Sansa, to enjoy breeding his heirs on.

Sansa would use that to get what she wanted from him. She knew how he worked. He had told her. She was his enemy, and his friend. He would use her to get what he wanted, as he already had, as he used everyone: He watched, he waited, he bided his time and he plotted, before he acted, always too many steps ahead to catch…

But direwolves were swift, and cunning.

And brutal.

The little bird that had fled King’s Landing and flown north had morphed during its journey…a direwolf had padded quietly through the gates of Winterfell as a bloody battle ended, and ripped apart her enemy.

The bastard had raped and brutalised her; and Littlefinger had sold her to be raped and brutalised.

She did not forget.

She watched, she waited, she bided her time, plotting, gathering friends and enemies around her, meticulously crafting alliances and whispering the birth of ideas into the ears of would-be allies, shifting their allegiances from a man they distrusted to a woman they perhaps _wanted_. Even swathed in heavy black cloth, no matter how fine that black cloth was, Sansa knew she was desirable.

 _I like her pretty_ …

_He needed my face..._

_You’re more beautiful than your mother ever was_ …

_I know he wants you._

The bolt slid heavily into place; two guards stood outside the heavy, reinforced oak door. Her lady’s maid had slipped away after arranging Sansa’s hair into a neat plait down her back, taking her linens to be laundered, and her frayed petticoats to be hemmed. The diamond-paned windows were shuttered; the fire blazed, and candles made the chamber glow golden, warm and comforting. But Sansa could not relax, too anxious thinking of Jon’s journey south, of the implications to herself and the North if he did not return, trying to decide how best to deal with Littlefinger, half-expecting a knock on her door in Jon’s absence. Lord Baelish was cunning; he was also lustful of Sansa.

She wondered, at the back of her mind, whether it would matter to Lord Baelish that she had been broken in. If, as a brothel-keeper, Lord Baelish even preferred that she had been. He would - _had_ \- treated her as he did his whores, sold to be brutalised, though she had escaped with her life at least.

The crackle of the flames was lulling, but she couldn’t help think of dragonfire, and her heart stuttered, her nerves making her jumpy, and she could not rest beneath the linen sheets and furs in what had once been her parents’ bed, the bed in which she had been born, the bed in which she was certain her grandfather Rickard had once rested - before he went south and was burned alive by a Targaryen.

She worried for Jon.

She worried that he would return, and she could not protect him from Littlefinger. She worried that he would not return, and she would have to take on the role of Queen in the North, and do battle with their bannermen, to try and survive the Night King…to rebuild after the battles were won… _if_ they were won…to wage war against Cersei Lannister, or Daenerys Targaryen, whichever survived their conflict…

Yes, Sansa had learned to play the game from watching Cersei’s ineptitude, from observing Tyrion’s ruthlessness and consideration, from Margaery’s vicious sweetness and guile. She had learned more than she realised, watching her parents rule Winterfell as she grew up and took lessons in embroidery and dancing from Septa Mordane - but she knew titbits, she understood implications and tried to remember things she had once heard Robb and Theon and Jon and Larra debating as her older siblings took complicated lessons on economics and strategy with Maester Luwin; she remembered Tyrion’s preparations for the Blackwater; and the Tyrells making it known Margaery had brought with her engagement to Joffrey the food that kept them alive.

But she had never had any power; never had any influence, or responsibility - except to herself, to keep herself alive, in spite of everything flung at her.

Sansa had not been educated, had not been prepared to be the kind of Queen she now wanted to be. She knew how to become loved, and respected - she knew she was desired, even if most weren’t as overt as Littlefinger about telling her - but if… _if_ Jon did not return, she would be Queen in the North. There was more to being Queen than feeding the smallfolk and keeping the respect of the nobles: An independent sovereign nation, she would have to start acting as Queen now, as if they would survive the war, as if they would have to rebuild, and rebuild without the (now diminished) might of the Iron Throne behind them.

The North had snatched back its independence with its bared teeth: Now, they had not only to defend that independence, but learn how to exist as an independent sovereign nation.

She needed to learn how to be, not just a Queen, but a _ruler_.

Where could she possibly start, at this late stage?

She had asked Maester Wolkan, days ago, that very question: she had wanted to assure Jon that while he prepared for war, she would do her part to support him as King in the North, whatever he needed. To be able to think of the things that he might overlook. When they had retaken Winterfell, Sansa had assured him that he was not doing so alone: They worked _together_ … And they still worked together, though he was heading south. She had to think of all the things she knew he was too distracted to remember.

By the hour of the wolf, she was still restless; perhaps she had managed to snare a couple of hours’ sleep, too anxious and unnerved and sick to her stomach at the prospect of what she had to do, terrified to even contemplate Jon’s fate - she didn’t know the Dragon Queen at all, and that unsettled her. She could plan for Cersei’s malice; she could not anticipate a stranger’s reactions…she had to learn how to.

Huffing, she flung back the furs and linens, wrapping her quilted nightgown around her over her simple linen shift, and unbolted the door. The torches had burned low, and flames flickered off the helmets of her guards.

“I should like to break my fast,” she told one of them, and if she was more well-rested she would have addressed him by the name she remembered, but was too impatient and anxious to say, “and as soon as Maester Wolkan has risen for the day I will see him in the solar. If you could pass on the message that I wish to discuss the question I posed him days ago.”

Dressing herself in the firelight, Sansa headed to the solar, a guard accompanying her, and took up his vigil outside the door.

She had work to do.

Long before the birds first started to chirp in the godswood, the windows still shuttered, a fire blazing, her hands shaking as she paced the room, Sansa started as a maid brought her breakfast. She insisted on modest portions: Porridge, thick and creamy in spite of the lack of dairy added to it, just oats and water as she had grown up with, and a soft-boiled egg and some toast cut into soldiers - the way her brothers used to take their eggs, the better to dunk toast into the runny golden yolk. A pot of chamomile and lavender tea warmed her trembling hands, and settled her overactive mind; her mother used to drink it when she was restless.

And she found that reading through Jon’s papers soothed her: He had known she would come to the solar, and sit behind the desk in what had once been Father’s chair. Jon had left everything neat, ordered into piles - Maester Wolkan’s census, correspondence and raven-scrolls, the last of the ledgers, which still bore the scratchings of Lord Bolton’s steward, and the neat hand of her sister before that, Larra Snow. Sansa sat, and examined the lines of the ledgers. Sums had never been her strong point: But she was determined to learn, and in combing meticulously through each line, she realised that the ledgers were merely a matter of organisation. Larra had known every line of the ledgers; loose leaves of parchment showed sums in Larra’s hand, indicating calculations she had made in anticipation of Robb’s march south to free Father. The cost of hosting the Northern lords, while Robb called the banners; arming and feeding Northmen…the cost to those left behind, the poor yield at harvest indicated by the comparatively lower sums annotated in Larra’s hand from the taxes collected.

It had made her heart stutter, the first time she saw Larra’s handwriting on the page, startling and unexpected. And it made Sansa’s eyes burn to realise she and Larra, always so different, wrote their T’s the same way, their F’s and their J’s - hadn’t Septa Mordane instructed them both in handwriting?

Sansa had secretly enjoyed the afternoons Larra joined her and Arya for needlework and dancing. Especially Larra teasing Jon and Robb while they were forced to learn the steps of vigorous Northern folk-dances, the refined court dances popularised by the Reach, and the elegant waltzes of the Vale that Father sometimes, rarely, had come into the schoolroom to teach them. She still remembered dancing with her father. She remembered dancing with her brothers, and her sisters. She remembered enjoying her lessons with her older sister.

 _Sansa…do you remember your lessons_?

She’d been a foolish girl annoyed by her strange, fierce little sister, but Septa Mordane had heard the clashes and known, ordered Sansa to bar her bedchamber door…she had _known_.

But Sansa remembered her lessons.

Her father, her mother…she knew Septa Mordane would be proud of her, too, of the woman she had become, and of the ruler she wanted to be.

She traced her fingers over Larra’s handwriting, her eyes burning.

She used to disdain Larra for her interest in politics and economics and all of the things that men took for granted they were educated about; things Sansa, a lady, never should have had to concern herself with. But Larra had always been clever, always respected that she was a bastard, that with two true-born sisters she was unlikely to be married off well, and had contented herself with the knowledge that, long after Sansa’s mother was dead, Larra would help their brothers’ wives raise their children and rule the North when Robb and their brothers went off to war… Larra had insisted on a proper education, and Father had ensured she got it: She had been Maester Luwin’s best student.

As the birds started to chirp, the servants came to open the shutters, and Sansa took a brief reprieve from the ledgers, sipping a fresh cup of tea, to gaze out of the window into the pale dawn. Snow was falling softly, and the sun was glinting beyond the walls of the castle, the castle that had not yet truly woken; everything felt sleepy, and soft. At least, it felt so; she knew that men were already out working on the great trench around the perimeter of the castle, carpenters working tirelessly on trebuchets to launch flaming projectiles into the enemy’s midst.

Jon had told them that the dead had no war machines, no cavalry, and no archers. The living did not have to worry about projectiles being launched into their midst - but every man lost was another soldier in the Night King’s army. The dead did not need weapons when they had numbers, when they themselves _were_ the weapons.

If she thought about it too much, it seemed impossible.

But she had to go on believing that it _was_ possible. For Jon’s sake. For the sake of her people.

A soft knock on the door, and the timid Maester Wolkan emerged from the shadows, his arms laden with heavy tomes bound in leather. She gave him a gentle smile. He had always been kind…had done what little he was able to try and protect people at Winterfell, and, she was sure, the people of the Dreadfort. And that made her think…

“Good morning, Maester Wolkan,” she said softly. “I have just spent a few hours combing through the ledgers. I’m rather cross-eyed. Would you join me in a cup of tea?”

“Thank you, my lady,” he said gratefully. She knew he was not accustomed to kindness, consideration, that he had in fact lived his life in sheer terror: Sansa had been raised with a profound respect for the Maester of Winterfell. She had endured Grand Maester Pycelle, who made her skin crawl; while in King’s Landing, any ailment Sansa had kept to herself, or had taken the advice of her lady’s maid Shae to alleviate. Pycelle, who had been bought decades ago by Tywin Lannister; who served no-one but Tywin Lannister, and his own interests. Maester Wolkan reminded her of Maester Luwin. He was timid, yes, but clever and kind, and resilient, she had to think, after so long under the tyranny of the Dreadfort.

“The implication from the ledgers is that a great many of the improvements to Winterfell since the sack of the Ironborn have been paid for with Lannister gold,” Sansa said softly, and the maester glanced uncertainly at her as she passed him the cup of tea. She considered it a delightful irony that what the Lannisters had fought so hard to destroy, they were paying for her and Jon to repair.

“Yes, my lady,” he said softly. “The…payment was sent directly to Winterfell after the…”

“After the Red Wedding,” Sansa said coolly, and the maester nodded. “And my former stepmother’s weight in silver, I presume, was also sent directly to Winterfell’s treasury by Lord Frey. Has the treasury of the Dreadfort been emptied?”

“The last of the wagons have crossed the White Knife, my lady, along with the contents of the granaries and larders.”

“And the people?”

“Making their way, by wagon and on foot,” Maester Wolkan said, “driving the livestock.”

“Any hint of trouble upon their arrival, Maester, and I wish for the perpetrators to be dealt with swiftly, and justly,” Sansa said coldly. “I do not wish to inspire fear but I shall not tolerate the kind of cruelty I know was prevalent throughout Bolton lands.”

“Of course, my lady. If I may…people model their behaviour after the example of their leaders,” Maester Wolkan said gently. “I do not believe you need fear the taint of the Dreadfort shall continue within the halls of Winterfell.”

“Thank you, Maester,” Sansa said, with a sad smile. “I…have not thanked you as I should have, for your tireless efforts after the armies reclaimed Winterfell. Your contributions made the transition seem almost seamless.”

“I serve Winterfell, my lady,” Maester Wolkan said, nodding slightly in deference.

“Well, I hope you have started to consider Winterfell your home,” Sansa said. “Our former maester, Luwin, would appreciate all your efforts. You are an exceptional reflection on the Citadel, and a credit to Winterfell.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Maester Wolkan smiled. “I imagine those of the Dreadfort will come to regard Winterfell as their home as much as I have. It is a very different place to what we have become accustomed to.”

“Under the Boltons, the truly abhorrent became accepted, and then it became commonplace - and celebrated,” Sansa said coldly, trying and failing not to think of her husband, his father… She tried not to linger too long over the fate of Lady Walda who, despite being the daughter and wife of her family’s murderers, had been a courteous, kind lady, who had always tried her best to be kind to Sansa. She had had her baby, they said, a little boy; she had been utterly entranced with him…for as many hours as Ramsay had allowed them both to live. It was not only justice for herself that Sansa unleashed Ramsay’s hounds upon her husband; it was justice for Walda, and her tiny boy, and for Theon, and anyone Ramsay had ever tortured to death for sport. “A pity we cannot spare the men to tear down the Dreadfort. Thousands of years of rivalry, finally come to a brutal end…and they deserved their end, a thousand times over. I am glad few others had to suffer before Jon and I reclaimed our home, and the North.”

“As am I, my lady,” Maester Wolkan said sombrely.

“The war efforts have filled your hours, I am aware, Maester,” Sansa said, encouraging the maester to drink his tea. She wished there were some little biscuits, so she didn’t start sloshing from drinking too much tea to keep herself warm, but it was she who had insisted on rationing the flour. Her days of indulgence were gone. “However, I was hoping you had given consideration to the question I posed to you some days ago.”

Maester Wolkan smiled, now, and his dark warm eyes crinkled at the corners, and for a moment, Sansa could be forgiven for seeing Maester Luwin’s smile in his face.

“Indeed, I have, my lady,” Maester Wolkan said, with subtle enthusiasm. “Although I cannot credit myself with the idea.”

“And why ever not?”

“If I may show you, my lady…” The maester stood, approaching the table, and the stack of heavy books resting on it. “Maester Luwin was meticulous in his record-keeping, Lady Sansa. Especially where his observations concerned the education of your siblings. From their earliest childhood, Maester Luwin devised lessons and exercises to cultivate their learning. These…these are records of their progresses. These tomes in particular pertain to the education of Alarra Snow, my lady. She is your sister, isn’t she?”

“Larra,” Sansa murmured, her insides twisting painfully, her throat burning as she added, “She was Jon’s twin… What did Maester Luwin teach her?”

Everything, apparently.

From the time she was four years old, Larra had taken daily lessons with Maester Luwin. The heavy tomes, tucked with loose sheaves of parchment with Larra’s developing handwriting, her drawing skills, her comprehension of High Valyrian poetry, charted Maester Luwin’s education of Alarra. He had outlined her _progresses_ , her lessons in everything from gardening and botany to economics, trade and histories, complex mathematics and budgeting, foreign languages, strategy and patience, theology and woodworking, blacksmithing and cooking, military history, law and chivalry, sagas and Valyrian poetry, geography and High Valyrian, art and architecture and irrigation, siege defence and tickling trout, horsemanship and culture and customs of foreign lands.

Maester Luwin had annotated lesson-plans, referencing tomes in the library and mixing lessons inside with practical applications of knowledge in and around Winterfell. He had mixed practical out-of-doors experience with collaborative discussions in front of a fire, frequently making notes that his students had played cyvasse and knitted while they debated hypotheticals about definitive moments in history that had shaped the world in which they lived.

“Maesters are prone to praising themselves, my lady,” Maester Wolkan said, with a touch of humour, “but I am truly in earnest when I say that Maester Luwin turned the education of your siblings into an art-form. His lessons are extraordinary, and a pleasure to read.”

“My sister loved to learn,” Sansa said softly. “I am sure a good reason for that is because she had such a wonderful teacher; or did Maester Luwin develop his lessons so wonderfully suited to her, because Larra was such a wonderful student?”

“Either way, I would never waste these lesson-plans,” Maester Wolkan said fondly, and Sansa smiled.

“Perhaps we should put them into wider practice,” she said softly. “Make a system of it. Larra and Maester Luwin would both have liked that. And we shall soon have a good many children getting underfoot and becoming boisterous and irritable, cooped up within the halls of the castle during the worst of the storms; it would do well to keep their minds engaged and excited by learning.” Maester Wolkan chuckled softly. “Although…seven tomes? You’ve not had time to read all of them?”

“No, my lady; I began with the very last of them,” Maester Wolkan told her. “When your brother Lord Robb Stark called his banners and went to war, Alarra Snow remained at Winterfell, acting as steward to your brother Brandon... Maester Luwin kept records of their discussions relating to the war efforts and the preparations for winter, taking into account continued contributions to the Night’s Watch.”

Sansa smiled to herself. Larra had done exactly what she knew she would be left to do: Rule Winterfell, and raise the children. Her mother had gone south, provoking war; but Larra had stayed to be a mother to Brandon and Rickon, to rule Winterfell in Robb’s stead. And she had done the thing well; Sansa asked the Maester if he didn’t mind leaving the tomes with her, and made herself comfortable on the settle before the fire, her feet up on the little embroidered stool, reading through some of Maester Luwin’s last assessments of Larra’s capable rule of Winterfell. He had made few notes after the Ironborn attack.

She set the heavy book down and sipped her cold tea, upset by one observation; the Ironborn had attacked Larra.

Larra had killed three Ironborn intending to rape her. She had ripped the throat out of one of the Ironborn with her teeth, gouged the eyes out of a second, and impaled the third with a meat-hook through the jaw - before Theon had attempted to subdue her, and been found by more Ironborn, knocked out cold and bloody but alive. Sansa’s brothers had disappeared after that: Two farm-boys had been killed in their stead and passed off as Bran and Rickon, a young whore from Winter’s Town too - after the Ironborn had tired of her, butchered and burned and strung up for the smallfolk to break their hearts over.

But the note, the very last words Maester Luwin had written, read simply: _They live!_

She knew Larra had always been fierce - had been trained with weapons alongside their brothers since she was a child - but to read it, in Maester Luwin’s meticulous, careful print… Sansa could almost hear his voice inside her head, soft and careful and warm. It was all the more horrible to hear his voice telling her such awful things…

It had been a long time since Sansa had ventured to the other parts of the castle, where the ghosts of her family lingered, haunting. Before, she had not been permitted freedom from the single chamber in which Ramsay imprisoned her; now, she could not bear to see the destruction wrought by the Ironborn on her home. To see the direwolves guarding the crypt decapitated by the order of the petty Boltons made her blood boil, and her heart sink: She did not know what they would have had done to her siblings’ chambers.

Separated from the rest of her siblings’ chambers, as they always had been, Sansa was shocked to find that Larra’s chamber was untouched.

It had survived the sacking of the Ironborn, and the scourge of the Boltons. It was just another heavy door and a room full of furniture. Larra’s room had always been close to Jon’s: Sansa could tell he had not set foot inside it since they reclaimed Winterfell. The dust was undisturbed.

But there it was. Larra’s room. Her modest bed, laden with linens and furs, and a silk-lined wool throw with a border Sansa herself had helped Larra embroider with every kind of Northern flower they could find in the godswood and the glasshouses. A trunk at the foot of the bed with an upholstered lid, full of Larra’s neatly-folded gowns - there were folds of dark fabric Sansa did not recognise, gowns Sansa had never seen her sister in. A work-table laden with Larra’s sketches and paintings, covered in a layer of dust; the box of paints and brushes Lord Manderly had always gifted Larra on her name-day since she was a girl. A handsome rocking-chair beneath the diamond-paned window, and a woven basket full of yarn and embroidery hoops and folds of fabric, half-completed projects. Beside it, a tiny, upholstered footstool embroidered with snarling direwolves, on which Sansa vividly remembered Arya sitting as a girl, listening to Larra sing as she combed Arya’s damp hair, the only one who could gentle Arya long enough to untangle her mane, and the spot where Rickon used to sit, and suck his thumb, leaning against Larra’s legs as she told stories, the fire crackling as her knitting-needles clacked gently. Larra could knit without looking at her hands, like Old Nan.

A mobile of weirwood branches hung before the window, strung with ornaments and treasures Larra had collected, or was gifted: Sansa had always envied it. She dusted the rocking-chair and sank into it, against a feather-cushion embroidered with direwolves and winter roses, and gazed at the mobile. Larra’s treasures caught the light, though they were dusty: Pretty things she had picked up on walks or while out hunting, interesting things their brothers had gifted her, presents from their bannermen. Pine-cones and conkers; silver bells strung up with velvet ribbon; sea-glass and beautiful shells and a shark tooth and a pearl from White Harbour; beads from old gowns and wooden carvings of direwolves; feathers and a small crystal geode; a small pendant carved from antler; a chunk of amber with a dragonfly trapped inside it; even an obsidian arrowhead; small bundles of dried herbs; and a silver-and-gold ring that caught Sansa’s attention, remembering the burning envy that had overwhelmed her when Robert Baratheon presented Larra with it at feast.

The ring was silver-and-gold, the elegant band figured like a rearing golden stag and a silver direwolf, meeting to cradle a multi-faceted stone of obsidian striated with silver-quartz - a very rare stone, they had said.

In front of everyone, King Robert had told Larra that the ring had been intended for Lyanna Stark as a bride-gift: But Larra looked so like her, and was so vibrant, he couldn’t bear to bury the ring in the dark with his beloved’s bones. He wanted to see Larra wearing the ring, with flowers in her hair and the sun shining down upon her.

Queen Cersei had had Larra flogged for it.

Larra had still been healing when Sansa and Arya had left Winterfell with Arya.

Sansa’s sister had laughed that the King had gifted her a ring; and the Queen had given her fine red ribbons.

Thinking back, Sansa didn’t know how Larra had _laughed_.

The ring glinted, and chimed against the silver bell, when Sansa reached up to open the diamond-paned window, to let in sunlight and the scent of snow - a natural perfume Sansa had always associated with her sister, who had always smelled to her of sunlight and white winter flowers and heather in frost.

She sat in Larra’s rocking-chair, examining the mobile in the sunlight, and silently wept.


	8. Last Hearth

**Valyrian Steel**

_08_

_Last Hearth_

* * *

She had mistaken the flame-red for weirwood leaves, at first, vivid against the snow-covered evergreen of the ancient forest. A giant roared, brown-haired and wrapped in a skin, broken silver chains glinting at its wrists. House Umber’s sigil, flying high over the great keep of Last Hearth, whipping and snapping in the high winds. The dawn had greeted them, cold and fair; she could not remember her last sunrise. Beyond the Wall, they had lingered in a perpetual twilight, the moon glowing off snowbanks and frozen lakes, but no sunlight. It had only perpetuated the timelessness Larra had become accustomed to beneath the weirwood.

Sharp and bright, the brittle sunlight filtered through the bent evergreen boughs laden with a mantle of fresh snow. Here and there, hellebores poked their heads out of the frozen underbrush, snow-white and fresh crisp green, occasionally a rich velvety purple, their petals downturned, resilient as any direwolf in the snows. Mist rose from a stream beside the weirwood fed by a hot-spring, glowing as the shards of sunlight caught it, making the ancient godswood eerier for it. Only birdsong punctuated the breathless, reverent silence of the godswood. There was no snow falling this morning; only stillness. It was lulling, almost gentle. Flashes of red darted about amid the snow-white and umber brown and evergreen; a worship of weirbirds drew her eye, and as the sun shone, they sang. Small songbirds, they were startling in their colouring, with vivid scarlet beaks and plumage, and snow-white faces; the females were snow-white. A group of the songbirds was called a _worship_ in the North: Sometimes the females would conceal their nests among the leaves of a weirwood, as if trying to get as close to the Old Gods as possible. Their song was beautiful: Larra hadn’t heard it in years. She remembered few but the largest birds of prey living beyond the Wall.

It seemed even the wildlife had been fleeing the White Walkers. But then, hadn’t the appearance of a direwolf in the woods heralded the beginning of the Starks’ troubles? She remembered the beast in the snows, maggots crawling out of its eyes, its pups birthed after its death mewling and wriggling blindly for milk, the broken antler of a great stag lodged through their mother’s jaw.

 _Freak_ , Theon Greyjoy had called it.

Jon had told Father his children were meant to have the pups. Three boys, two girls - the same as Ned Stark’s children. An albino, pushed away by the others, for Jon: And the largest, wiliest and perhaps the kindest of them, eyes already open, a jet-black that had pounced on Larra’s boot, claimed by Larra.

Their direwolves had been companions and occasional protectors ever since.

Larra didn’t like to think how their lives would have unfolded had Father allowed the men to butcher the pups, all those years ago. Sansa and Arya had lost Lady and Nymeria before they even reached King’s Landing: And Arya was still presumed dead. Larra knew hints of what Sansa had endured, but no more.

Brandon sat beneath the heart-tree, communing with memory: Larra padded through the virgin snows, a foot deep, and sang back to the weirbirds.

As a girl, she had learned to identify and mimic the song of every bird in the godswood. When she had nursed a harpy eagle to health, she had learned how to mimic its cries - and terrified her little brothers in the godswood, launching herself at them from the topmost boughs of trees, after Jon and Robb and Theon had wound them up that great harpy-eagles would swoop down and carry them off for dinner. She smiled to herself, watching the worship of weirbirds singing in chorus, responding to her own whistled song, remembering the black eye Bran had accidentally given her, thumping her out of pure reflex: She had to think she and her brothers had taken a few too many liberties frightening Bran and Arya.

Larra had argued to Father that they were teaching their younger siblings _resilience_.

Maester Luwin might have regretted teaching her what that meant, and why resilience was important in all aspects of her education, and her life.

She sighed, and thought about the little boy Bran used to be, the sweet-faced, clever, kind boy he had once been, the one who scuffed his boots and looked down every time he fibbed; and the young man he had become in the last fortnight alone, ever since his communion with the heart-tree in the weirwood grove beyond the Wall.

Bran her brother had become a different person since. She had noticed, the day they walked through the Wall; she had known, as Edd told her the truth of their family’s tragedies, of which their own had been one of the first, and perhaps more certainly, the least. He had become Brandon the Broken, for the first time; there was something fundamentally fractured in Bran, and she did not mean his spine. He was not as she knew him to be anymore. She wondered how long it would take Bran to return to himself, if ever. If he would achieve that, before the end of her lifetime. And if there was anything she could do to speed up the process.

It would not do to have this stranger return to Winterfell with her: They needed someone _invested_. They needed _Bran_.

Regretfully, she turned away from the birdsong, padding through the snow to the heart-tree. Bran’s eyes were as colourless as the weirwood tree behind him; there was a soft pink flush in his cheeks from the cold, his hands red from exposure as he pressed his palm to the trunk. It was an unsettling vision, that still, emotionless face and lifeless white eyes; not the brother she had raised.

Larra had risen before dawn, gaining perhaps three hours’ rest. She never slept for long nowadays, not even beneath the weirwood, where the Children had assured her of their safety. She fell into restless dozes with fear clutching at her lungs, and she woke with terror gripping her throat. And constantly, _constantly_ the worry about Bran.

It had been conditioned into her: _Look after Bran_.

“Brandon,” she said gently, and reached out to rub Bran’s chest just beneath his throat. Over the last few days’ travel, Bran had spent a good amount of time with his eyes colourless, communing; it had unnerved the brothers of the Watch, but they were becoming accustomed to him. There was no other choice: Until they reached Winterfell, they all had to muddle along. “Come on, it’s time to come back. We must move on.”

They had remained the Umbers’ guests only overnight, to give the horses a rest, and the men a warm, dry place to lay their heads - a luxury. It had taken closer to ten days than a week to reach Last Hearth: A storm of sleet and lightning had cost them a day’s travel and several terrified horses, thankfully hunkered down in an abandoned holdfast in the New Gift. But two brothers of the Night’s Watch had died of sickness during the first few days’ march. They had been coughing for years, Edd told them; the order to retreat to Winterfell had not brought their deaths nearer.

They had been burned where they fell. It was not respectful, they all knew, but they could not afford to linger.

Perhaps it was the pain in her side, the bruise still angry and flourishing purplish-red beneath her furs and obsidian chainmail, the weight of Dark Sister sheathed at her waist, the absence of Hodor and Summer, that settled dread in the pit of Larra’s stomach. She had been so long beyond the protection of the Wall that she forgot the army of the dead chasing at her heels could not move past it. It would take a very long time before she did not dread looking over her shoulder, did not listen for snarls and groans on the wind. So long as the Wall held true, they could indulge in a feeling of relative safety.

 _Relative_ …

He was getting better at returning. He still didn’t like it, though.

“I was learning,” Brandon murmured in protest, his eyes dark once more.

“We’re moving on. You can commune once you’re settled in the wagon,” she told him, half-reminded of Rickon. She had been his primary caregiver, his _mother_ , since Lady Catelyn had left Winterfell for King’s Landing on a fool’s errand, never to return. It had fallen to Larra to discipline and coddle Rickon in equal measure, to raise him, to care for him, to love him, and teach him compassion, dignity and respect. It had fallen to her to gentle some of the wildness, without breaking it. She had learned a very specific way to address Rickon: Stern, unyielding, but kind. She used that mother’s voice now, with Brandon, more than twice their brother’s age when Rickon had been left wild and confused, fearful and lost. “You know I will not move you from the weirwood while you’re communing; but the world does not stop while you dive into visions. I hope you were watching something illuminating.”

“It was,” said Brandon softly. He raised his dark eyes to her. “I shall show you, in a little while.” Larra stared at Bran. _Show_ her?

Her stomach cramped, and she thought of Hodor.

Hodor, whose name was Wylis.

 _Hold the door_ …

Hodor’s fate had given her more than one nightmare, and for more than one reason than simply becoming fodder in the Night King’s army. They had _left_ him… Her gentle giant, simple and sweet, kind and considerate, easily frightened…they had _left_ him to a monstrous fate. They had abandoned him to save their lives.

And she believed Brandon, somehow, had caused their sweet giant’s simple-mindedness.

The last words he had heard, _Hold the door_ …truncated, didn’t those three words sound similar to the only word Hodor ever spoke, had become known by?

Brandon sighed, his breath pluming before him, and folded his hands neatly in his lap. She gestured to the two Umber guards waiting for them beyond the grove of trees encircling the weirwood. She could carry Bran, if she had to: With grown men to share the burden, she chose to save her strength. They had a long ride ahead of them; they would push through until dusk before setting up camp. Dusk, and dinner. To eat every day was a luxury she was no longer accustomed to.

“You’re not ready,” said Brandon softly.

“No,” Larra said brusquely. Sometimes she had to speak to him in her mother’s voice, the same way she used to speak to little Rickon. Other times, she might have been spoken to by the oldest, wisest of maesters. She never knew which Brandon she would get. The reflective, dispassionate one unnerved her. “I don’t think I am.”

“We should say goodbye to our hosts,” Brandon said, and the two guards approached him. Larra frowned at Brandon; his face betrayed nothing.

The ancient keep of Last Hearth was a long, low rectangle, the castle’s namesake, an ancient stone hearth dominating the far wall, was engraved with scenes of battles from the Age of Heroes, when the Umbers had been petty-kings. The hearth itself, and the doors into the great keep were the most elaborate thing about the northernmost House: The Umbers’ giant was carved into the huge oak doors, the heavy chains of their sigil made fanciful in the design of the locking mechanisms. Snarling giants’ heads functioned as gargoyles, and ravens perching atop them glared down into the square yard at the foot of a sweeping flight of frozen steps up to the doors, which stood open but guarded, people bustling in and out.

Last Hearth was emptying, only a handful of people remaining - Edd murmured that the Watch called it a _skeleton_ crew. The absolute least they could get away with, and yet still function. The bare bones.

Ned Umber, eleven years old, was one of the few who refused to leave, but he was doing his part, stood in the yard, ensuring his people had what they needed, and assuring others that he would be following as soon as the northern clans had gathered to Last Hearth before the final push to Winterfell. He would not leave them behind: He knew that, just as the Watch had stopped at Last Hearth before pushing ahead to Winterfell - a journey that may take them just as many days again, if not more - many others would need the protection of the castle if they were to survive.

The Umbers’ sigil hung either side of the doors. Larra stared at them, whipping in the winds, briefly allowing herself to wonder whether, so many years ago, she should have fought more fiercely to bring Brandon and Rickon to Last Hearth after the Ironborn sacked Winterfell.

Crowfood and Whoresbane Umber stood in the yard with their great-great nephew, one huge and bearded, a patch of white leather worn over an eye he had lost years before; the other, with a face like ice, implacable and unnerving. She remembered them vividly from her childhood, from feasts in her father’s hall: The two eldest Umber uncles seemed more animated now than she could ever recall, and the look on Ned Umber’s little face said he wasn’t used to their enthusiasm.

A quiet word from Brandon when the Watch had been welcomed had altered their attitudes dramatically.

_“Ravens have been sent to all the great Houses in the North to retreat to Winterfell,” Edd said, frowning at the number of people gathered in the hall. “The mountain clans will know to head to the Starks. You must prepare for the journey south.”_

_Ned Umber spoke for his elderly uncles. “House Umber will not flee, when our people linger beyond our protection. Grain is due from our lesser lords, we must contribute.”_

_Larra frowned gently. “The dead don’t care about your larders, boy,” she said sadly, staring at the young lad in the high chair between two monstrous uncles who made him look all the smaller. “Most of us will be dead long before the last of the winter rations must be tapped. You can be certain of that. You’re the future of your House, my lord, a House that goes back to the Age of Heroes, unbroken.”_

_“If this is to be the end of our House, we shall make such an end as to be worthy of legend. We may not survive the Night, but others shall; they will know it was House Umber who looked death in the eye and fought to give the North precious time, so they might live,” Ned Umber said stoutly, lifting the little chin that would never know a hint of a whisker. Larra stared at him, and at the two wizened men flanking him, her face hard._

_“You put this in his head,” she said coldly. Ned Umber was the same age Bran had been when he had been left the Stark in Winterfell by Robb, off to war to rescue Father. War turned boys into men before their time, either on the battlefield or climbing into their father’s seat. But even a boy left to rule was still a boy; and echoed what he heard from those he respected. Had not Bran echoed Maester Luwin, and Larra herself?_

_“Umbers don’t flee,” growled Crowfood Umber, the chunk of obsidian nestled in his empty eye-socket glinting in the light of the hearth._

_“House Umber will not abandon its people,” Ned Umber said determinedly, and she was impressed, for a second, that he held her gaze so unflinchingly. “We wait for the last of those who rely on our protection…” He sighed, and shifted uncomfortably in his grandfather’s large seat. He winced, and glanced at Larra, his face so young, overwhelmed - but stubborn. She looked at him and remembered Bran, as he was. “I owe my life to the King in the North, my lady.”_

_Crowfood Umber had committed men to Stannis Baratheon, on condition his brother was granted forgiveness: Whoresbane had sworn fealty to House Bolton, to protect the life of their nephew the Greatjon imprisoned at the Twins._

_On the battlefield outside Winterfell, Umber men had turned on the Bolton forces before they knew what was happening: The Bolton forces had penned in the Starks, and the Umbers had ruthlessly cut through the Boltons, just as the Knights of the Vale appeared on the horizon, to ride down the rest._

_Jon had forgiven House Umber their disloyalty, and more importantly, had absolved the young Lord Eddard Umber of any guilt or blame for his uncles’ choices, as he had Lady Alys Karstark, niece of Cregan Karstark who had died on the battlefield outside Winterfell. Jon refused to snatch homes from young children, the same way his own brothers and sister had had their home taken from them because of the actions of a few ambitious, misguided men - from situations beyond their control._

_“From what I understand, Lord Umber, it is your uncles I must thank for my brother’s life, as much as I must thank the Knights of the Vale and the Free Folk,” Larra said softly, with a hint of a smile. She noted the two miserly old men’s reactions at her mention of the Free Folk. She had purposely not called them wildlings, waiting for their reactions. Few families but the Starks had as much history with the wildings as House Umber, so close to the Wall. It was often they who had been called upon to raise banners and sent men North to fight incursions of Kings-Beyond-the-Wall. Their losses were many. Old Nan had told Larra, long ago, that Mors Umber’s only daughter had been carried off by wildlings many years ago. Larra could not imagine Jon’s support from the Umbers had been easily won, after he had allowed the last surviving Free Folk past the Wall, through Umber lands._

_“Free Folk,” Mors Umber growled. He swept his one good eye over Larra’s furs. “I’d heard the King in the North had bedded wildling whores and clothed himself in their furs to make war on them, but I didn’t believe he’d allied with them ‘til I saw them on the battlefield.”_

_“And how did they look?” Larra asked coolly. “Flesh and blood, just as you are.”_

_“No better than monsters, wrapped in their furs, using sharp sticks and their bare teeth to kill.”_

_“We have both used our bare teeth to kill, my lord,” Larra said fairly, a smile radiating from her eyes, and Mors Umber chuckled in spite of himself, “and as for the furs, how else do you survive the snows? You are hard men, my lords…I imagine the Free Folk made Umber men look like summer lads.”_

_“They say your brother was murdered for his love for the wildling scum,” said Whoresbane snidely, his eyes hard as flint. “Do you lie in the mud with wildlings, as he does?_ ”

_Larra’s grin was not a smile; it bared her teeth in a threat every man recognised. She looked like a direwolf, and Mors Umber shifted uncomfortably in his seat, beard shimmering in the candlelight as he swallowed: He exchanged a brief look with his nephew, before turning to his brother they called Whoresbane for the pretty boy he had killed in Oldtown decades ago._

_“I thank you to mind your manners, Whoresbane,” she said icily, drawing her shoulders back, glaring at the old man, remembering her lessons with Septa Mordane. “I am still my father’s daughter, regardless of how I dress. Would you ask me such a thing before him?”_

_“My uncle craves your pardon, Lady Alarra,” Ned Umber said plaintively, his voice so young, his eyes so wide. Whoresbane Umber said nothing, only glared at Larra, who gave him a very haughty look, and turned to give Ned Umber a half-smile she hoped was conciliatory._

_In truth, she had rutted in the mud with wildlings, and of the last few years, could remember nothing else that set her body afire and made her toes curl. That made her feel_ alive _. They weren’t to know that: And she was no longer in the land of the Free Folk. Down here, beyond the Wall, things were expected of her; and of how others treated her. She was Ned Stark’s daughter, after all, if not lawfully born…as far as anyone knew…_

_“Never thought the Stark Kings would ally with murderers and rapers,” Mors Umber growled, almost reflectively. There was a hint of accusation; but they all heard it._

_“The King in the North is brother to murderers and rapers, all in black,” Larra said lightly, a challenge in her intense violet eyes._

_“Moyra was well-suited to life beyond the Wall,” said a gentle voice, and all eyes went to the crippled boy nestled before the hearth in his furs, his long slender white fingers curled around a cup of steaming mulled wine, utterly disinterested in it. He gazed thoughtfully into the hearth, the flames dancing in his dark eyes, impenetrable and unfeeling as the obsidian filling Mors Umber’s empty eye-socket. “She could have returned a dozen times over; she was free.”_

_Mors Umber gaped for a moment. Was this the first time Mors Umber had heard his daughter’s name on anyone’s lips in decades? “You shame my daughter’s name. Wildling filth raped and dishonoured my Moyra. She was not free.”_

_“The Free Folk fought each other for the honour of claiming her as their spearwife,” Brandon said, turning his pale face to Mors Umber, who stared at Bran as if held under some spell. The worst thing, Larra knew from personal experience, was the uncertainty. A tiny smile played at the corners of Brandon’s lips. “And when they were finished hacking at each other, they had to fight her. She chose who had the honour to father her children, which is more than was ever offered her south of the Wall.” Bran’s smile grew softly, the thinly-veiled accusation levelled at Mors Umber, whose beard quivered as he ground his jaw. “Her sons are encamped at Winterfell under the King in the North’s banner and protection. Bors, and Umber. Bors wields Moyra’s great axe. Hoar and his spearwife Johnna fell at Hard Home, but their children survived to board Stannis Baratheon’s ships - Moyra’s grandsons Ivar and Hvitserk, and her granddaughters Freydis and Gudrun. They train with bow and spear at Winterfell even now.”_

_Mors Umber’s face had turned white as new snow. Beside him, the icy-faced Whoresbane betrayed no emotion._

_Sat in his grandfather’s seat, young Ned Umber frowned, confused. He was so young, he might never have heard the stories. Brandon turned his dark eyes on little Ned. “Your cousins await you at Winterfell…and your grandfather rides the Kingsroad past White Harbour to return home.”_

_“Jon?” Mors blurted._

_“After the Twins’ Feast, those Northerners imprisoned within the bowels of the castles found themselves inexplicably released, armed and armoured and provisioned and have turned their feet homeward,” Bran said softly. “The Twins now smoulder as ruins; my uncle has been reinstated as Lord of the Riverlands, in open rebellion of the Iron Throne. The Greatjon seeks forgiveness at Winterfell, for his failure in protecting the King in the North he named and swore his life to…”_

A wagon-train already wound out of the yard out of sight through the ancient forest, carrying grain and supplies and the vulnerable, with livestock driven on foot, flocks of grey Northern geese and pure white ducks using the channels in the snow made by wagons, by hardy, shaggy orangey-red cattle and Northern Blacknose sheep with their fluffy white coats, whose wool was particularly prized for its softness and excellent dye retention. The Umbers also boasted a breeding herd of aurochs; the bull was complacent, enormous, and _slow_ : Larra saw Edd looking at him sadly, and Edd had told the story of one of his brothers, Grenn, nicknamed the Aurochs, who had been tasked by Jon with five of their brothers to hold the gate at Castle Black against the last giants. He had sworn his life to the Watch: That night, he given it, stopping a giant.

There was a song in there, Larra was sure: She just hadn’t the heart to set to writing it.

The Umber men carried Brandon to a covered wagon. Small children and young mothers were already nestled in the straw, with blankets and clothes bundled up: Brandon reached out and opened the fastenings of a raven cage, there by his request. The bird cawed, once, and hopped out onto Bran’s legs, perching on his knee. Brandon smiled contentedly, and stroked the glossy black feathers.

Larra stared at a baby.

In its mother’s arms, it had wriggled an arm free of its swaddling. Enormous blue eyes shone with innate joy as it gave her a gummy, wet smile, its fingers opening and closing like petals in the sunlight, tiny and dimpled, waving toward her. The baby could not have been more than a few months old.

Larra reached her finger out, offering it to the baby; it grinned toothlessly, focusing with effort on her hand, which it grabbed, cooing and gurgling as it wrapped its tiny little strong fingers around her long, bruised, scarred one. The contrast of her hands, covered in webs of pink and white scars, her middle-fingernail blackened by bruising, the skin rough and calloused, with the baby’s soft, unblemished hand on hers… Once, her hands had been like ivory, clean and meticulous; she used to keep her nails. She used to do a great many things.

She also never thought she would ever see another baby.

Here she was, at Last Hearth with Brandon and Meera, a blue-eyed baby grinning at her, and Northmen fleeing south to Winterfell to fight the White Walkers she had outpaced. There was much to be thankful for.

In that moment, staring at the baby’s open, joyful face, Larra’s eyes burned, and she allowed her lips to twitch toward a smile.

She leaned forward, hiding the tears that dripped hotly to her cheeks, as she kissed the baby’s tiny hand, freeing herself from its strong grip. She smiled and stroked its cheeks, making it gurgle and smile gummily, kicking its legs, dimpling at her.

Larra shrank away, heart-broken.

She asked one of the women to keep an eye on Brandon, and left the wagon. Meera caught her eye briefly, and mounted a hardy pony to follow Brandon.

Larra would ride beside Edd. She needed some distance.

She needed to train herself to step away, now that she could.

Now that it was not her, and her alone.

Jon had not been at Castle Black, but because of him they had gained hundreds of brothers. Because of him, they had a guard of thousands to journey to Winterfell with.

It would make for slow going, but it was worth the annoyance.

Larra hadn’t been near so many people in a very long time; proximity to the brothers of the Night’s Watch were the first crowds, the first people besides Bran and Hodor and Meera she had mingled with in years.

She had not forgotten her courtesies, but it would have been the easiest thing in the world. To forget who she was, where she had come from, to forget that she had a family, and was clever and highly educated…because up there…beyond the Wall, none of that had mattered. Her mind had been stagnating for years, as her body had become more and more emaciated, learning to live purely on instinct alone: Find shelter, find food, _survive_.

It was good to be among people again.

Even as she knew a good many of them would die, if not all, before the Dawn came again.

A groom led a fine mare across the yard, black as night, her coat glossy, shimmering like fine velvet, tall, strong but elegant - and one of the Umbers’ prized mares, she was certain of it. To breed on her would create stunning foals. With the right sire, she would breed fierce coursers, perhaps even a destrier; she had the height, strong hindquarters and a muscular back. Her face was beautiful, too, with the inky eyes Larra had always loved in horses, dark hair falling into them. She snorted as she was across the yard, stamping her feet irritably and tossing her head; she had fire, Larra could tell, gazing at the horse.

“She’s one of our finest mares, my lady,” said Ned, and Larra turned from the mare to find Ned Umber at her elbow. She hadn’t realised that she had forgotten how little Rickon was: He would always appear under her feet when she was least expecting him to be there. It made her stomach hurt to look down and gaze into Ned Umber’s young face.

“Lord Umber,” Larra murmured, dipping a polite curtsy that lost some of its elegance due to her furs. “She’s beautiful,” Larra added, reaching out to stroke her knuckles gently down the mare’s elegant nose. She stamped her foot, snorted, but nuzzled her nose closer, letting Larra stroke her face, scenting Larra’s furs for food.

“Her name is Black Alys,” said Ned quietly, and Larra noticed he stood a little behind her, watching the mare carefully. “She does bite, but I think she likes you.”

“We all nip when we’re afraid or annoyed, hey?” Larra murmured, shushing Black Alys gently as she snorted, tossing her head, and stroked the horse’s face tenderly. The Watch had given her a horse, though Larra craved riding a truly superb mount again: She had always loved to ride, had been as natural on horseback as a centaur on their four legs. And Black Alys was a gorgeous mount.

“My uncles say the stable-master will have her put down if they can’t break her,” Ned said sadly, gazing watchfully at the mare. “She’s too wilful.”

“Wild things should never be broken,” Larra murmured, almost to herself, turning to glance down at Ned. He seemed very young, staring wistfully at the admittedly rather haughty, terrifying-looking mare, whose hoof was the size of his head. “Wild things should be free…but sometimes…sometimes they can be gentled, befriended.”

“Like your direwolf,” Ned Umber said, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “I’ve seen King Jon’s direwolf, Ghost, in the godswood at Winterfell. He looks like a weirwood. Do you think you could befriend Black Alys?” Larra murmured under her breath to the horse, praising her, letting her know her voice.

“We _are_ friends,” Larra said softly, smiling gently to herself as she stroked the horse’s face and neck. Something uncoiled in the pit of her stomach, a tension loosening, and Larra sighed, stroking Black Alys’s neck. This was familiar. Admiring fine horses in the yard of a holdfast, the sounds of work echoing around her… “Sometimes we just need to take the time to introduce ourselves…learn some of each other’s secrets…”

“Do horses have secrets?” Ned asked, and Larra turned a mysterious smile on him.

“Of course…every creature in the world has secrets… There is a legend in the North, that sometimes mighty warriors who fall in battle are reborn as great horses,” Larra said gently. It had always been one of her favourite legends of Old Nan’s. She used to think her gelding was Ser Arthur Dayne, reborn to be her companion and protector as she hunted on horseback through the wolfswood. She had always been half in love with the Sword of the Morning, for all her disdain of Sansa’s wholehearted belief in songs and legends.

“Do you think my father might be reborn as a great horse?” Ned asked curiously.

“The Smalljon? A destrier, absolutely! Nineteen hands, at the very least,” Larra smiled tiredly, and the little boy beamed, standing up just a little straighter.

Little Lord Umber glanced around, and leaned in closer uncertainly, after checking his uncles were across the yard. He said conspiratorially, “They say you killed Ironborn with your bare teeth to protect your brothers.”

Larra blinked. It seemed so long ago now. She had still worn her wool dress and hose then, not the furs she shrouded herself in now. Rickon was a boy, Brandon, barely older. They had not yet met Meera and Jojen, not yet ventured so far north that going beyond the Wall had ever entered Bran’s mind… She had murdered Ironborn who attacked her. Three of them. Sometimes she still tasted their blood in her mouth; marvelled how easily eyeballs burst beneath her fingernails; how the sound of metal grinding against jawbone had reverberated up her arm on impact.

“Yes, my lord,” she murmured, watching the boy warily. Ned’s eyes widened; she wondered how he would react to his father’s, grandfather’s and uncles’ battlefield feats. They said the Smalljon lost his life to two swings of an axe - only after overturning a table to shield the wounded King in the North.

“My uncles said King Jon’s direwolf fought beside him on the battlefield,” Ned Umber said, his eyes sparking with excitement. “White and blood-red as if the gods’ wills were made flesh and blood in the Starks’ sigil.”

“Their will _was_ made known that morning,” Larra mused. And it was certainly fateful that the Stark and Snow children had found those seven pups in the wolfswood that horrible misty day when Bran had witnessed his first execution unblinkingly, and in spite of his mother’s protests. The execution of a Night’s Watchman who swore to his last breath that he saw the White Walkers…

“My uncles used to tell me the King in the North’s sister was fiercer than any direwolf.”

“That is high praise indeed. To have the respect of warriors like your uncles means much,” Larra said honestly: She had always known that her family would not get far without the respect bordering reverence of their bannermen. Only Bran’s dreams and insistence had muted her arguments to take Bran and Rickon to the Umbers, and beg their protection.

Ned Umber flashed her a quick, shy smile, and he gave her a furtive glance before turning and gesturing at someone. He had to repeat the gesture a few times: A small boy joined him reluctantly. Where Ned Umber’s eyes were pale, with soft brown hair, the other boy was dark-haired with fierce black eyes - Larra stared at him, reminded so vividly of young Bran, of young _Jon_ , that her heart stuttered. He bore no resemblance to wild little Rickon at all, but…it was the youth in his face, the mercurial stubbornness in his chin, suspicion in his eyes, and a deep sense of brotherly love and loyalty when he gazed at young Ned Umber that made Larra’s stomach hurt with homesickness for the family she had lost, the brothers she missed. There was some resemblance between the two boys, in the shape of their eyes and noses, the curve of their ears, though the younger boy’s face was slimmer, and Larra couldn’t help think of the Stark women who had married into House Umber over the centuries, with their slender oval faces and solemn beauty. She realised the other boy must be quite a bit younger than Ned; though he was nearly the same height.

“Who is this young warrior?” she asked gently, and the younger boy stood up straighter, puffing out his chest proudly, showing the Umber sigil stitched lovingly onto the breast of his fur-trimmed cloak, wrapped over a leather-studded brigandine Northmen favoured in war and especially in winter, and a quilted tunic beneath that for warmth and protection from the armour. He was a boy dressed for the battlefield; he lacked only weapons.

“This is Little Jon.” Another stutter. Of course, Jon was a common name among the Umbers: his father and grandfather both bore the name. It was not unique to _her_ Jon. Though looking at him, he could have been her twin’s miniature. “He’s my brother. And he’s seven.”

“Seven? I almost took you for a man,” Larra said, reaching out to muss his hair, the way Jon used to muss their younger siblings’ hair, and Little Jon grinned impishly for a brief moment. “I’d wager you’ll be taller than the Greatjon by the time you’re grown.”

“My brother and I wish to make the mare a gift to you, my lady,” said Ned Umber, his eyes earnest as he gazed up at her. Larra blinked. To give a guest a gift as they left the safety of your holdfast signalled one of two things: Either a token of friendship, or a declaration that the safety of guest-right had ended with their departure.

She had been a guest of the Umbers only overnight, refusing a feather-bed to sit by the hearth all night, dozing by the fire. And the Umbers had sworn their fealty to Jon at Winterfell - Mors, Hother and Ned alike, the joint-castellans and assumed Lord of Last Hearth with the Greatjon’s imprisonment.

A token, then.

“The King in the North placed me under his protection, my lady, and my brother as well. We owe our lives to him. I hope I do not insult him or you in asking this favour, to ask your protection for my brother until you reach Winterfell.”

Larra stared at Little Jon Umber, her heart breaking. She looked at him and saw Rickon; she saw Bran. _You must protect them. You’re the only one who can…_ She flinched, thinking of Rickon’s brutal death; and her heart throbbed, regretting the changes in Brandon that had made him unrecognisable to her.

Still…Brandon was alive, wasn’t he? What she had committed herself to, keeping him alive, she had succeeded in. It was a simple goal, really: One that had consumed her every waking moment for years.

What she attempted, she conquered.

She had once overheard Maester Luwin telling her father that. She remembered it now, and it still filled her with pride: She looked at the guileless little face of Ned Umber, looked at the dark eyes of Little Jon, and was filled with grief at brothers she had lost, and the fates of these two boys before her.

They would never see each other again.

She sank to a knee, putting herself at a level with Ned Umber, her brother’s bannerman. A boy. A boy who wanted to know his brother would be safe, and looked after. Who was willingly yielding his brother to Larra’s care because of the respect Ned himself had for Larra’s own brother, his king, who had cloaked him in his protection…

“One thing I excel at beyond all others, my lord,” she said, her voice low to stop it breaking, “is protecting little brothers.”

She gazed into Ned Umber’s eyes, and conflict flickered across his face: Fear of the unknown, grief at parting, stubbornness at refusing to give in to his dread or his own desires to keep his brother close, where he would not be safe, relief, gratitude, and sadness. Perhaps Ned knew what she did; that he would never see his little brother again.

“I’m not going!” Little Jon cried vehemently, his face furious and beseeching at once as only a child’s could be. He implored his brother, “I have to protect you!”

“You’re my little brother, Jon, _I_ protect _you_ ,” Ned said with feeling, his hands on Little Jon’s shoulders. Though younger, Little Jon was already nearing his brother’s height, spindly-legged and broad-shouldered like a direwolf pup growing too fast. Larra’s heart broke to see them, the rhyme of memory ringing in her mind. “Father told me so before he went off to war with King Robb. You have to go to Winterfell: You’ll learn how to rule Last Hearth after me, and they’ll train you as a warrior.”

Little Jon’s breath hitched, his dark eyes widening. “A warrior like Father?”

“Even _fiercer_ than Father, I’ll bet,” Ned Umber grinned, and for a second, mirth and cunning flashed across the brothers’ faces. Ned reached for something, and presented his little brother with a small, shining, fresh-forged hatchet, and a bone-handled hunting knife. “I’ve had a hatchet made for you. I know you like throwing Uncle’s. And a hunting-knife for your very own. The handle’s made from _bear_ -bone.”

Larra, still sunk on one knee, turned to Little Jon. “Do you know how to use that? No?” she asked, and Little Jon gave her a reluctant look, a thoughtful frown. He looked sternly at the weapons strapped to her, the jewelled hilt of the sword belted at her waist, and seemed to decide she was worthy. He shook his head. “We shall have to remedy that. Lady Meera over there could teach you to shoot an arrow right into a snow-hare’s eye at forty paces if you ask her sweetly.” She nodded over at Meera, who had mounted her pony, looking tired but less gaunt after ten days of Hobb’s cooking - it was astonishing what the cook of Castle Black could dream up out of the kitchen-tent.

Every day, she and Meera and Bran ate a little more than their last meal; slowly, ever so slowly, they were starting to remind their bodies what proper food tasted like, and every day, Larra could eat a little more. To begin with, the food had been so rich it hurt her stomach to eat it: Bread was utterly foreign now.

Before they had left Castle Black, Meera had eaten her egg, fried in butter, with a rasher of bacon and some blood-sausage: It was the last time Larra could remember Meera truly enjoying anything. She hadn’t been able to finish it; they’d shared it. And the rich food had seemed to turn to ash in their mouths as they thought of those who could not share their meal. Hodor, Jojen. Uncle Benjen. Father. Robb. Rickon. The list would get longer before the end.

She turned to Ned Umber, and saw Bran in the tower, embracing Rickon for the last time.

Bran, who could still _see_ Rickon, if he chose.

Larra gazed into Ned Umber’s face. “You’re a young boy, and already a good man, Ned Umber,” she told him solemnly. “Until the Dawn comes, I will not let Jon out of my sight.”

“I wish you good fortune, in the wars to come, my lady.”


	9. Playing with Dolls

**Valyrian Steel**

_09_

_Playing with Dolls_

* * *

_I haven’t played with dolls in years_ …

Sansa sat at her dressing-table, tiny pots laid out, some of them scented prettily, reminding her of a bouquet of Tyrell roses drifting about the gardens in King’s Landing, candlelight glinting off the mirror before her. Her face was the same as it had been in King’s Landing, though a little older admittedly. She had become a woman during her years as a hostage. There was a glint of steel in her eyes now that she had never developed through all her torments under Joffrey’s tyranny. She sighed, setting down her fine silver-handled brush with its soft bristles, and savoured the quiet crackling of the fire in the great hearth, the snap and pop of the white-hot logs and the soft hiss of chestnuts as they cooked in the embers, a treat to warm her as she worked late into the night in the privacy of her chamber, without her constricting gowns, without her corseting and braids.

In her parents’ chamber, hers now due to Jon’s thoughtfulness and sense of guilt at taking Sansa’s place as heir of Winterfell, Sansa allowed herself rare moments of peace. She left her hair unbound, past her waist, and closed her eyes, savouring the quiet, and the warmth, tiny snow-kisses from the window left open a crack dusting her skin; her father could never breathe with the rooms closed up and stuffy, and she had found that being in the North again, she preferred the crisp air more than unbearable heat. The smell of snow was home; it was also freedom. The snow had saved her from the fall; had also slowed down those hunting her. Eyes closed, she reached in front of her, her fingertips brushing against the tiny figures arranged neatly before her mirror.

Reading Maester Luwin’s progresses on Larra’s education, Sansa had discovered that a good deal of her siblings’ learning in matters of war had come from a game. Cyvasse. She had heard of it in King’s Landing, of course, but there was no one at court who had wanted to be seen to be befriending Sansa Stark to play it with, let alone learn the game - until Margaery, of course, and she had hardly needed little figures and a carved board with moveable tiles when she was so adept at manipulating people wherever she wanted them to be, moving deftly across a continent to claim what she wanted. Yes, Margaery had been skilled at the _game_ ; the Tyrells had underestimated Cersei’s careless wrath. Robb had been adept at war; but had forgotten the principles of the _game_ itself. There was always more going on that the board did not show.

Sansa had been learning how to play cyvasse.

She had discovered in Maester Luwin’s progresses that he had taught Larra and their brothers carpentry, as a means of teaching them the value of craftsmanship; and they had used their skills to make their own set of cyvasse pieces. But the Knight of the Vale who had professed himself a lover of cyvasse and committed an hour every day to playing with Sansa in the solar with a cup of tea and a biscuit, had told her that the sets her siblings had carved were utterly unique. A standard cyvasse set consisted of various quantities of ten standard pieces: Rabble, spearmen, crossbowmen, light-horse, heavy-horse, trebuchet, catapult, dragons, elephants and kings. Her siblings’ cyvasse sets were utterly unique, and tailored to their lessons of history, geography, economics, trade, strategy and religion, among other things. Each of their campaigns had been meticulously recorded by her siblings in one small tome Maester Wolkan had unearthed from the Maester’s Tower, from the very earliest lessons in basic strategy to the last, most complex campaigns her siblings had spent months planning and completing. There were also unique pieces Maester Luwin had had carved by Winterfell carpenters: With each throw of the dice, new obstacles and challenges altered the wars, and her siblings had had to adjust their strategies. Sometimes they had started with a familiar scenario, the sequence of events leading up to significant conflicts, and how they would have reacted with their benefit of hindsight, and how those strategies played out; how they might have affected the world in which they lived, if they would have lived at all.

With each new campaign, Sansa’s siblings had created new pieces for their cyvasse sets, and Maester Luwin had created more complex obstacles, introduced new challenges. Sometimes they had been forced to consider how to rebuild _after_ a conflict, using what little resources remained, considering their allies. Maester Wolkan had presented her the cyvasse sets where Maester Luwin had always kept them: in a tall, slender inlaid chest that Maester Luwin had had made especially, half Sansa’s height, a door concealing several drawers. Each of her siblings had one drawer where their pieces were stored together, nestled in velvet; there were other drawers full of the carved and painted tiles they used, and added to with each campaign. The lowest drawer contained the stratagems her siblings had written in response to each campaign, meticulous planning, including vulnerabilities, allies, neutral regions and potential alliances, ledgers, and the phrase Jon had mentioned before he left Winterfell - Larra’s _designated survivors_.

The Knight of the Vale had taken to reading the Maester’s reflections and her siblings’ stratagems, absolutely infatuated with the meticulous devotion to the art of learning this altered version of cyvasse - its place in their education and the real-world application that had made Robb Stark undefeated in the field of battle when he was murdered; and Jon, a Night’s Watch steward, King of the North allied with the Free Folk for the first time in thousands of years.

Sansa had taken her favourite pieces from each of her siblings’ cyvasse sets, and they stood side by side in front of her mirror, in pride of place. The tiny ship with a kraken figurehead on the bow, the tiniest cotton sail stitched with a kraken sigil - she recognised Larra’s stitching, though it was Theon’s piece. Robb had a running direwolf carved from boar tusk, possibly the first boar he had killed himself on a hunt. Jon had a faceless horseman charred by the fire to appear all in black: He had always known he would join the Night’s Watch, to die in anonymity.

And Larra…Larra’s pieces intrigued Sansa and her Knight of the Vale equally, the Knight because they were so unusual, and Sansa because they were so exquisite. In Larra’s progresses, which Sansa was still reading, Maester Luwin had often commented that Larra devoted herself wholeheartedly to any given task set her, once she was shown the basics and was allowed to fly: What she attempted, she conquered, and once Maester Luwin had started teaching her patience, it had been drilled into Larra to devoted herself to completing every task, no matter how small. Sansa remembered sitting for portraits: She remembered how meticulous Larra was, and how hard she was on herself if she did not meet the standards she held herself to. Every one of Larra’s pieces was a work of art in itself, utterly creative and meticulously designed, flawlessly rendered. Sansa often wondered how many times Larra had had to practice before getting the pieces just as she liked them.

From Larra’s set, Sansa had taken the perfect, miniature weirwood tree. Its trunk and branches were carved from a single chunk of weirwood; scarlet silk had been cut and stitched into the tiniest five-pointed leaves, barely bigger than the nail on her little finger, stitched and coiled around the branches with invisible white threads.

When Sansa sighed, the ruby-red silk leaves shivered as if in a breeze in the godswood.

Every midday, Sansa sat in the solar with a cup of tea and played cyvasse with a Knight of the Vale. Every evening after braiding her hair to turn to her bed, she looked to the four tiny figures before her mirror, touching each of them with her fingertip, thinking of the ones who had created them. Almost a prayer. Robb, Larra, Theon, Jon. Two were gone. Two were absent; but Larra’s touch lingered in the pieces they had all left behind - a hairpin that had been transfigured into a sword for Jon’s Ranger of the North; the kraken stitched lovingly onto the tiny sail of Theon’s ship; the meticulously-carved handsome face of the direwolf and even the pads of its paws, a touch only Larra would have had the artist’s eye and patience to even remember.

She reflected on the tiles Sansa had asked the carpenters to make her, alongside their other war preparations: the pieces she had commissioned that were not to be found among those her siblings had left behind. Most of them were gone, but their legacy was what they had left her to learn from.

 _I haven’t played with dolls in years_ , she thought, reflecting on her day, with Littlefinger skulking in the shadows, doing what he did best, using her servants to gather information she did not drip-feed him. _Now my dolls are living and breathing and most of them are set upon murdering me._

Cersei’s last raven-scroll was coiled neatly beside her candleholder, demanding Jon go south to swear fealty - or die by Cersei’s design. She kept it as a physical reminder. Beside the tight cylinder, a small vase of herbs from the glasshouse kept another raven-scroll unfurled; it was from Lord Manderly, telling Sansa that Jon had set sail safely from White Harbour, with a small fleet of ships Ser Rodrick had tasked the Manderlys and Umbers to build when Robb had headed south with the Northern bannermen.

Robb had never used the ships, but they bore the Stark sigil on their sails.

Jon was the first King in the North to have a fleet of his own for centuries.

She would have rather had her brothers and sisters back than a fleet of ships, or news that Jon had safely departed to one of the most dangerous places in Westeros; the bowels of a dragon.

A small pile of raven-scrolls rested beside Lord Manderly’s unfurled scroll. She kept it open to reassure herself. But the others demanded her attention, no matter that it was nearly the hour of the wolf, and she was to take a dawn progress around Winter’s Town, which had been rebuilt in the years since the Ironborn and Boltons sacked it. During any given winter, it had been customary for most Northmen to turn to Winterfell for shelter and sustenance - full to bursting, it could house at least twenty-thousand. Every one of them would need to shelter within the walls come the inevitable battle against the Night King. Sansa was learning more every day, thanks to the combined efforts of Lord Royce, Master Wolkan - with whom she took three hours’ instruction every morning after breaking her fast early - and Larra, who had kept her own observations and lists and plans in a small diary in her sewing-box in her bedchamber. Larra had been left to rule Winterfell with Maester Luwin, until Bran reached manhood, and winter was coming; she had had to think ahead, and Sansa combed through her sister’s notes, learning as much about her sister’s cleverness as preparing for winter in the midst of wartime. By the time Maester Luwin’s last notes had been scratched hastily into Larra’s progress, the North had been actively engaged in a war to the south, which had already cost them the autumn and a good deal of the manpower for harvest; and winter was coming.

It was Larra’s notes, and her memories of the bouquet of Tyrells in King’s Landing, and their cooks from the Reach with their unusual, flavourful dishes, that had Sansa, early the next morning, writing a raven-scroll and signing it as _Sansa Stark, Lady Regent of the Northern Kingdom_. She sealed it, and fed a raven before sending it on its way to the Reach, where it arrived, ten days later, just in time to catch Lady Olenna Tyrell before she climbed into her wheelhouse, bound for the eastern coast and a Tyrell ship to Dragonstone.

* * *

The great beasts swooped and soared, banking and diving sharply. Three of them.

How long was it since last dragons hunted the lands and waters surrounding Dragonstone? Centuries? She could not remember. Every sailor manning the small but richly-laden Tyrell fleet gazed in awe and no small amount of dread as three dragons beat their enormous wings - green with a glint of bronze, like their own sigil; onyx striated with blood-red, the Targaryen sigil brought to life; and snow-white and glinting like gold - circling the last relic of Old Valyria. Dragonfire had shaped the fortress - dragonfire and sorcery. Even her tired eyes could discern the features wrought by magic to make the towers resemble dragons.

 _Targaryen posturing_ , she thought disdainfully. She remembered the Targaryens, when the family had still been strong, when Aegon the Unlikely had sat the Iron Throne. She remembered the Last Dragon. Handsome, exceptionally clever even by her exacting standards, and a fool, dead in the mud with a woman’s name whispered from his lips as blood sprayed from his broken body. Rhaegar. The last true hope House Targaryen had. She remembered the Prince of Dragonstone; this had been his home, during his marriage, where both of his tragic children by the Dornish princess had been born.

His mother Queen Rhaella had died here.

Accompanied as Olenna was by a selection of her surviving grandchildren she had meticulously chosen, for the first time she felt a flicker of compassion for the Queen. Dead during childbirth, bringing forth the last of the Mad King’s seed taken root in her belly. After such devastating loss, Olenna now realised the toll it took to carry on: How wonderful, to give in. To rest. To join the ones who had gone before her.

She should never have lived this long.

Fury kept her animated. Fury, and a lust for vengeance.

Queen Rhaella had given in: Olenna Tyrell would _never_ concede.

Now the selectively blind, duty-bound Queen’s daughter had come to reclaim her family’s ancestral seat. The very last of noble Valyrian dragonseed left to the world.

With three dragons.

One alone could lay waste to King’s Landing within a fraction of an hour. What Cersei had left intact of the city, of course. Olenna dreamed of Harren and his great castle: Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Cersei roasted within the halls of the Red Keep, smirk seared from her face by dragonfire.

From what Olenna had heard, the Dragon Queen had no qualms turning her dragons loose to get what she wanted. She had fed Meereenese nobles to them, to instil fear and try and subvert a revolt.

Was that any better than Cersei Lannister using wildfire to blow up the Great Sept? To murder not only Olenna’s son, and grandson and granddaughter, her nieces and nephews and their children - but Cersei’s own family. Her own Lannister ladies-in-waiting, her cousins, her uncle. Any Lannister who reminded her that she was not nearly as clever as she thought - she was hardly her father’s daughter: Cersei was all fury, no finesse. Tywin had been ruthless and implacable and Olenna had been amused to find herself respectful of him: It was rare to find her match, and she had luxuriated in the excitement, the spark, after so long, to have to stretch her wits.

It was dreadfully dull being the cleverest person in the room all of the time.

It had been almost pleasant to be outmanoeuvred, when it had been the Stark girl they were fighting over like spoiled children in the nursery who would rather tear the doll in two than let the other have it.

She had heard that Tywin’s deformed monster of a son had been named Hand of the Queen to Daenerys Targaryen. He had been a disappointment, a browbeaten Master of Coin, not at all the drunken whoremonger she had been amused to hear stories of, with wits as sharp as Valyrian steel. Once again she had found herself utterly disappointed.

Olenna wondered very much how this Targaryen girl measured up.

She did not anticipate much.

After all this time, Olenna was an excellent judge of character and intellect - and after recent experience, was the unlikeliest person in the world to underestimate those she believed lack intelligence or charisma.

Cersei had her wildfire, and the Targaryen had her dragons. They would burn King’s Landing to the ground to claim what little remained of the Iron Throne once the fires had burned to ash. But how much wildfire could Cersei’s pyromancers make, especially when the Targaryen girl’s dragons had burned King’s Landing and her armies of savages and eunuchs had laid siege to the city’s gates and harbour.

The Targaryen girl would get what she wanted, Olenna was certain of it.

How she got there made little difference to her: Olenna only desired her House to survive whatever onslaught was coming, to see her family thrive after Cersei’s best attempts to rip the roses out of Westeros root and stem.

She had often disdained the words of the family into which she had engineered she be married into. _Growing strong_.

Not dangerous words. Not the grim warnings of the Starks, nor the disdain of the Ironborn, _We do not sow_ , or even the taunts of the Martells, _Unbowed, unbent, unbroken_ … Those were arrogant words - but true. Princess Nymeria had once been a great heroine of Olenna’s in her childhood. No. The Tyrell words were _Growing Strong_. As the men lowered a little boat from the side of their ship and rowed her and her eldest surviving granddaughter to shore, Olenna observed the girl and reflected on the Tyrell words. There was a certain stubborn resilience to them. For all they decorated everything within her sight with roses, it was the vines beneath that mattered; cut back, they returned, spring after spring, supporting the exquisite blooms year after year.

The girl was no Margaery, but of course, who could compare? Margaery had been exceptional. Her eldest cousins had stood in as her ladies-in-waiting at court, the prettiest, wiliest of Olenna’s granddaughters plucked from Highgarden to place themselves strategically at court, using their pretty petals to coax would-be allies close enough to wrap their vines around, before they even realised they were ensnared, thorns in their sides, and supporting the Tyrell roses.

Burned to ash, in a single moment.

Olenna would have been, too, if not for her granddaughter’s note. A single, poorly-etched Tyrell rose, sketched in charcoal from the fire on a scrap of parchment ripped from the Book of the Seven. Olenna had it folded and tucked against her breast over her heart, still. Margaery’s warning to leave King’s Landing - her warning had been against the High Sparrow and his pestilential Faith Militant, not Cersei…either way, Olenna was alive and Margaery was dead and she could not help but grieve that it was so. It should be Margaery in her place, ruling Highgarden in her own right as Lady of the Reach, and Olenna no more than ashes carried on the wind.

It should have been Margaery tutoring her surviving cousins; it should have been Margaery sending emissaries to Dragonstone.

As it was, Olenna would teach her last surviving heirs through her example. Her granddaughter, Alynore. She had been one of the younger ones, too young to attend court when Margaery became Queen; and, the youngest of five sisters, she had always been a delicate little bud overlooked because of the larger blooms with luxurious petals and decadent beguiling perfumes. She lacked Margaery’s seemingly guileless blue eyes and sweetly smirking rosebud mouth and insouciant little chin, but Olenna could not deny her granddaughter Alynore had her own beauty.

Sometime between the start of the War of the Five Kings and Margaery’s wedding to Tommen, Alynore Tyrell had grown up. Olenna could not quite put her finger on when; truth be told, she knew so very little about this granddaughter.

Alynore had the most exquisitely virginal face Olenna could ever remember seeing. As if the Maiden herself were personified in her granddaughter.

Margaery’s blue eyes had glinted with shrewd charisma: Alynore’s delicate green eyes were beguiling in their sweetness, framed in lashes that fluttered, the tips glinting gold. Her nose was far prettier than Margaery’s, her features almost perfectly symmetrical, and her lips were lush and rose-pink. She was blessed with glowing ivory skin, and cheeks that flushed naturally. Her hair was a soft, pretty brown that glinted with rich gold tones even in the cold island sunlight, and she wore it twisted away from her face with intricate little braids, the rest loose, shining to her waist in gentle waves. Her smile was modest and inherently kind.

As the eldest surviving Tyrell granddaughter, mothers all over the Reach would look to Alynore as a model for their daughters’ modesty and sweetness.

And men would tear each other to pieces to be the first to mount her. Their lust for temptresses who brought to life every dark fantasy was matched only by their lust for untouched maidens who yielded to their advances, eyes wide and thighs soft.

Where Margaery had been playful and coy, Alynore was gentle and unsettlingly earnest. Alynore was soft-spoken and naturally shy, where Margaery had become accustomed to being fawned over, always the centre of attention. Margaery had had exquisite self-assuredness and poise, while Alynore was modest and showed her emotions in endearing little ways.

She was shy; but Olenna was privately impressed how gracefully Alynore was adapting to her new position - eldest heir to the Reach, after her younger brothers at Highgarden. Olenna was not an easy woman to be near to: Alynore endured her tyranny with a seemingly bottomless well of patience.

It rather shamed Olenna to think it, but she knew so little of the girl Alynore truly was behind that virginal face and her mild manners. Was she only calm, and helpful, taking the initiative, anticipating what Olenna wanted or needed, to keep her happy, to help Olenna’s work, to have meals prepared before Olenna realised she was hungry… Alynore would have made a wonderful lady-in-waiting - a role she had truly been trained for by her mother and her septas as soon as Margaery had set her eye on Joffrey - but the eldest female heir of House Tyrell? That was a different role entirely.

She was now the prize rose in the garden.

Alynore had to learn.

“Close your mouth, my dear,” Olenna said, with a touch of impatience, reaching out to gently stroke her granddaughter’s delicate little chin to soften the sting of her words. “You must learn to disguise your reactions - let nothing appear to shock you, no matter how gruesome. Never betray amusement if it costs another person their dignity, for it will be remembered. You must become a swan, my dear. No matter how madly you must scramble beneath the surface to remain afloat, to the world you are nothing but serene and elegant, unflappable.”

Alynore closed her mouth, but her eyes flickered back to the dragons careening overhead, larger now as the little boat carried them to the little dock. A small island, reliant on fish for survival during the winter, Olenna observed the miniscule fleet of fishing boats docked in the small harbour.

“Now that we know the rumours are true, how do things change, Grandmother?” Alynore asked, grimacing subtly as the boat jolted against the wall, some of the smallfolk lingering offering their aid, in the hopes of a coin. They earned it, helping Olenna to solid ground once more. With the benefit of youth she would always take for granted until it was inexplicably gone, Alynore ascended elegantly from the little boat, offering the rough fishermen a smile that had them half in love with her, all thought of coin forgotten as they drank in those rosy lips and gentle green eyes, had her murmur of thanks - perhaps the kindest word any of them had ever had from a highborn - especially one so fine.

Olenna watched the girl, and raised an eyebrow. Perhaps she had it, after all.

Appearances were deceiving.

However, there was nothing duplicitous about the Unsullied patrolling the harbour, like a small regiment of featureless beetles; there was nothing but undisguised threat and hostility from the shabby Dothraki with their deep copper skin and oiled braids threaded with silver bells of victory, longer than any of her granddaughters’ hair. There was nothing confusing about the threat of those three dragons.

As for their mother…

She made note of the eerie silence in what should have been a bustling harbour bringing in fish to overwinter the smallfolk. Salt should have been shipped in from the Saltpans to preserve it. She saw precious few faces belonging to natives of the island: Those she saw were drawn, suspicious, harried.

It could not be plainer that Daenerys Targaryen was _occupying_ Dragonstone, in only the worst connotations: She knew enough of the smallfolk to read the signs. The Dothraki and Unsullied were not welcomed, not wanted: They were feared, and tolerated only… Dragonstone had not been liberated…its people were oppressed by fear with the mere presence of the Breaker of Chains and her armies.

The smallfolk of Dragonstone, some of whom may have been descended from Valyrians themselves when the Targaryen dragon-lords first claimed the island as an outpost of their empire, were too afraid of the invaders to prepare for winter.

“It makes things rather simple. The Targaryen girl will use those dragons to take what she wants with fire and blood. Oh, I am sure she may have some qualms about burning King’s Landing. But, when one gets what one truly desires, does one linger on doubts and guilt about how it came to fall into your lap?” Olenna tutted. She hadn’t lost a night’s sleep over Joffrey’s death: She had slept the sounder for it.

“The raven-scroll said Daenerys Stormborn intends to liberate the Seven Kingdoms from the tyranny of Cersei Lannister…”

“They say this Dragon Queen is an idealist, a champion of the enslaved and downtrodden…a slippery path to tread, utterly treacherous to the unwary - and the unwise. One day her quest to reshape the world will see her people cowering before her whims, as any slave who values his life minds his owner’s will…”

“I saw a Martell ship in the harbour. I wonder why Prince Doran has sent an emissary: The Mad King kept Elia Martell and her babies hostage. Dorne will not have forgotten that. They will never forgive that the Targaryens cost them their sister,” said Alynore thoughtfully.

“House Lannister butchered Elia Martell and her children. House Lannister cost Dorne their favourite prince. Do you imagine the Dornish will ignore the opportunity to eradicate the last of House Lannister?”

“But Tyrion Lannister serves as Hand to Daenerys Targaryen; and he was the one the Red Viper was champion for in the trial-by-combat that claimed his life,” Alynore frowned gently. “Why would the Dornish ally with Daenerys Targaryen if her advisers are from their enemy’s House?”

“Hand of the Queen! Their working days are too long, their lives are too short,” Olenna smirked. “Do you know how many Hands Aerys burned before the Kingslayer opened his throat in the Throne Room? Unlike the Kingslayer’s own maiming, these Hands are easily replaced.”

“I’ve heard Prince Doran is cautious. Why wouldn’t Dorne stay out of any conflict, if it’s in Dornish interests to remain neutral and preserve their strength?” Alynore pondered. “The North has declared independence from the Iron Throne. They have already liberated themselves from Cersei Lannister.”

“After she has claimed the Iron Throne, how do you imagine Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, recovers the North as one of the seven dominions she covets?” Olenna asked tartly. Alynore gave her a look. It was a look Olenna had given many times: It spoke much more than words. It said her granddaughter, for all her virginal looks and gentle manners, was no fool.

“How is this Targaryen queen any different if she uses the threat of dragons to get what she wants, instead of wildfire?” Alynore asked.

“Oh, she uses more than the _threat_ of them, my dear; she has burned people all across Essos and the Dothraki Sea, nobles and smallfolk alike, for getting in her way,” Olenna said airily. “I imagine this sovereign is no different than any other. Using cunning and admiration in equal measure to take what they want, and keep a rigid hold on it no matter the cost.”

“Margaery did that,” Alynore murmured. Olenna glanced at her granddaughter. “Daenerys Targaryen will take the Iron Throne. Grandmother, why are we here?”

“When she unleashes those monstrous creatures, she will take King’s Landing in a heartbeat, and the rest of Westeros will fall at her feet within the week,” Olenna said certainly. “And it will be remembered who stood by her side on her journey to the capital, long before all the other lords started to grovel for forgiveness and favours.”

“Why do you not have my brother declare independence, as the North has done?” Alynore asked quietly, glancing around, as a small carriage appeared: They were expected, after all. Alynore’s grip was strong as Olenna used her for support to climb in. It was musty from disuse. She imagined most things in Dragonstone were, after Stannis Baratheon’s exodus north. The Targaryen girl had merely commandeered them. “Let dragons and lions kill themselves to destroy each other.”

“Listen closely, my dear,” Olenna said shrewdly, as they settled and the carriage jolted into motion. “We are here to meet with this Targaryen girl, and get the measure of her. There are ways and means of handling impracticalities if she proves unsuitable. While you are at Dragonstone you will listen, and you will observe. They will be too busy being affronted by me to pay much attention to you; their tongues will be looser around you if they believe you’re sweet and docile and about as threatening as the rosebud you look. For all I thought Sansa Stark was a simple, dull creature, she survived Cersei Lannister for years; now she rules the North as Lady Regent for her baseborn brother. She kept her mouth shut, except to say what people wanted to hear; you must learn to _survive_ , my girl. Learn to play the game better than anyone. Better than Margaery…anticipate the likes of Cersei…and learn to get the measure of a person yourself, rather than rely on their reputations. Do their actions match their philosophies? I want you to watch Daenerys Stormborn. I want you to question how she acts, and why; and every decision she makes; learn who she listens to, and understand the bonds between them to get the measure of their influence; anticipate how she will react, and what she will demand. What did you observe in the harbour?”

“It seemed strangled with dread. No-one was working,” Alynore said, and she flicked her gentle green eyes at Olenna before murmuring, “There was a girl…I think they were Dothraki.”

“They take slaves as dogs rut on bitches,” Olenna said coolly. “They believe their braids entitle them to take whatever they wish. Westerosi lords are no different, of course; but not nearly so brazen about it - with a few exceptions. She will not be the first on this island to be raped before the Dragon Queen takes her conquest to the mainland. Copper-skinned bastards will abound throughout the Seven Kingdoms before the Targaryen girl is done. Within a generation perhaps Westeros will become the heart and home of the _khalasaars_. They say Vaes Dothrak still smoulders, a ruin.”

She tucked the observation away. Breaker of Chains indeed.

Under her very nose, the Dragon Queen’s soldiers abused those she had vowed to liberate.

And her granddaughter had noticed it in a moment’s glimpse of the harbour. Thinking on it, didn’t Alynore have to be observant to anticipate what _Olenna_ wanted in any given moment? She settled back in the carriage, as it trundled up the side of a volcanic mountain toward the monstrous castle, and rested, as much as she was able, before the inevitable meeting with Daenerys Targaryen.


	10. Expedience

**Valyrian Steel**

_10_

_Expedience_

* * *

The first hanging cage appeared two days’ ride from Last Hearth, outside the boundary walls of a small holdfast clinging to the frozen shore of Long Lake. The poor man had frozen to death long before thirst or hunger could claim him. A handful of men lowered the cage and prised it open, at Larra’s request: She would not risk leaving any dead unburned. And the cage was decent steel. Before the flames caught alight to burn the body, Larra noted the muscle-shells sewn to his ragged furs. One of the Free Folk, the last of only a handful of thousands to survive Hard Home, to survive the North: The last of the Free Folk.

“They say it’s almost pleasant to freeze to death,” Edd murmured. The wagon-train continued out of their sight, the sun low but bright, the evergreen trees laden with fresh snow and the lake to their right frozen solid. “You’re warm again, before the end. It’s gentle.”

Larra remembered Benjen’s frostbitten face, and flinched. She had heard that, as well. The burning body crackled and smouldered, and they moved on, as they had with the Night’s Watchmen who died during the first leg of their journey from Castle Black. They could not afford to linger.

They were nearing Winterfell: Had not Jon pledged the safety of the Free Folk when they came south, and reclaimed Winterfell, and the North, so he could exert his influence over the Northmen to comply?

One man, alone, Larra might tolerate, maybe if he was a convicted rapist or murderer.

As the nameless man burned, Larra couldn’t help remember her History lessons with Maester Luwin, arguing with her brothers: “ _To put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained, that it can be explained away_.” Some things should never be _understood_ …should never be explained…or explained _away_.

Before nightfall they were within sight of the holdfast. And perhaps Mors Umber, before Brandon’s nugget of information about his surviving wildling grandchildren and great-grandchildren, may have put the Free Folks’ capture and torture and death into the context of the Northmen’s historic hatred of and ongoing wars with the plundering wildlings. To explain the string of hanging cages and crucifixes strung up with people in ragged furs - or nothing at all - was a step behind explaining it _away_. Larra would not do that. She could not tolerate senseless cruelty.

Her hands gripped the reins tighter, Black Alys unnerved, perhaps by the scent of death or by her bond with Larra; Larra was upset at the sight of the disfigured bodies nailed to crucifixes, hulking birds of prey feasting on their remains, opportunistic hunters in the heart of winter.

It was the yard that did it. A small holdfast, the cottages of its smallfolk enclosed the great yard in a large square full of mucky sludge. A woman had been stripped naked and locked at the stocks, for the use of any man who wanted her, her face slack with grief and confusion, her body collapsed with exhaustion, eyes glassy. A young man’s back had been opened by the lash, still strapped to the pillory, legs weak beneath him, the blood frozen on his skin and matting his furs. Inside the hanging cage, a half-naked child had frozen where he had curled up for warmth. More of the Free Folk were shackled to rings on spikes embedded deep into the great stone wall of the yard beside frozen steps up to the oak doors.

Little Jon Umber, perched in Larra’s lap with a fur cloak wrapped around them both, turned his little face to hers, red-nosed, his eyes wide as an owl’s.

“Free them. Let them burn their dead with dignity,” Larra murmured to Edd, who had looked to her for direction. Ever since leaving Castle Black, he had started doing that more and more often; perhaps because she had advised about putting the fletchers to good use on the journey south, or because she was Jon’s sister and he had assumed she knew what she was about. Either way, she had proven her instincts to be sharp, and several of the stronger men set about freeing the chained wildlings. “Don’t approach the stocks.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re _men_ ,” Larra muttered darkly, but she needn’t have worried: The woman was dead. She asked several of the men to find something to cover her modesty when they freed her, and set her down gently, covered in an empty burlap sack, before they freed the man at the pillory. He was still alive, against all odds. “Gently, with his arms. Lower them slowly. Have the maester prepare herbs for a snow-coat. And Hobb shall warm some soup, if he can sit long enough to eat a few mouthfuls.”

Her own back seemed to burn with compassion, remembering all those years ago, the snap of the leather against her back, the ache in her arms, the cold kissing her bare breasts as the yard looked on sombrely, the people who knew and adored her weeping silently as the Queen smirked on. She remembered smiling dazedly at her in response, and the Queen striding out of sight, bored when the pleasure of inflicting punishment was deprived her. She remembered the snow-coat Maester Luwin had treated her with, the discomfort of sleeping on her belly on a wooden board, the scent of snow and herbs and blood mingling in the air, groggy from milk of the poppy Maester Luwin had slipped into the mouthfuls of stew she had managed, before the fever set in, and she lingered for days in a dreamlike state of pain and memories…

She didn’t look too closely at the man’s wounds, even as her own healed ones seemed to prickle and sear with burning pain, recommitting the pain to memory. She had recovered. She had deprived the Queen’s victory through resilience alone.

Cersei had had her flogged, twenty-five lashes inflicted by the expert precision of Ser Ilyn Payne…for the crime of reminding Robert Baratheon of his beloved. For being Lyanna Stark reincarnated.

She felt a grim satisfaction, thinking, _Oh, if they had but known…_ Lyanna’s daughter. The girl Rhaegar had died for; the girl Robert had gone to war for. The girl every man in Westeros seemed to have preferred over Cersei Lannister, who had become Queen simply because, at the end of it all, she was the last of them left. The last, and the worst. It wounded Cersei’s pride to be reminded of that.

The stunned wildling was carried to a wagon, arms draped around the shoulders of two Night’s Watchmen. Larra stared at the hanging cage; none of the men seemed to want to dare go near it. Grown adults was one thing…a _child_ …

He was a fragile-looking thing, no older than Little Jon, and quite a bit smaller. A mop of dark golden curls - like Rickon’s unruly mane. Lush lips that would have been the envy of any girl who saw them. Vivid blue eyes stared unseeingly back at her, framed with curling black lashes a mile long.

He blinked.

“Shit!” Larra swore, startled back, heart in her mouth. “He’s alive! Help me get him down!”

“How the fuck is he alive?”

“I don’t know - but his arm is broken,” Larra murmured, eyeing the boy, who started trying to unfurl from the tight little ball he had tucked himself into at the foot of the cage. His forearm was bruised blackish-purple, and bent at an unpleasant angle.

“Were they his parents, d’you think?” Edd murmured, as the cage was lowered. The cage was broken open by several hits of a hatchet wielded by one of the Night’s Watch carpenters. The boy froze when one of the men leaned in to lift him out; Larra laid a hand delicately on his arm, and the carpenter locked eyes with her, and stood back.

She wore wildling furs.

At a glance, she thought these Free Folk originated from the Frozen Shores. To survive Hard Home, only to meet such an end…

Carefully, she spoke a few words in a dialect from the Frozen Shores she had picked up from wildlings fleeing south as Jojen and Brandon had spurred them further north. It was a strangely beautiful sound, guttural in places, the sound coming from the back of her throat as if she were about to spit, rolling her Rs musically, lots of soft V sounds, almost like the rushing of waves. It was a dialect of the Old Tongue.

The boy’s lower-lip quivered as he reached out to her, his eyes on the bent arm. Carefully, she manoeuvred him out of the cage, helping him unfold from his crouch, and lifted him into her arms. He was frail as a fledgling, all skin and grief, with his broken arm and vivid blue eyes.

“Get Jon down off Black Alys, thank you. Chuck him in the wagon with Bran,” Larra said gently, nodding at the boy, and one of the Watchmen helped the boy off her mare. “Jon, strip to your smallclothes and climb beneath the furs. You’re to cuddle the boy as you would your brother; share your warmth, or he shall die.”

“But he’s a _wildling_ -!“

“Don’t give me that,” Larra said sharply, as Jon rolled his eyes, sighing heavily as he tugged at the fastenings of his cloak. Brandon watched benignly from his bed of straw, draped in furs and cloaks. They couldn’t risk his limbs getting frostbite; Larra didn’t know he’d survive the amputation. Slowly, Brandon himself started to shift the furs and blankets from his own legs, his hands like pale spiders against the furs. “I won’t tolerate that ignorance. Clothes off, now. Don’t give me that look; your uncles gave me leave to smack you if you’re foul. Ask Brandon if you think I won’t. The back of his head has my handprint embedded in it!” She managed to climb into the wagon, setting the boy down beside Jon, who looked positively plump next to the frail, strong wilding boy. “Mind his arm, Jon. It’s broken. Once he’s warmed we’ll have the maester set the bone, if he can. And I shall have Hobb warm some broth.”

“He’s _freezing_!” Jon cried indignantly, shivering away. She raised an eyebrow, giving him a stern look, and tucked the furs and blankets and extra clothes over the two boys, careful of the wildling’s arm. She spoke gently to the wildling boy, offering her name, and asking for his in turn.

“Ragnar. His name is Ragnar,” Larra murmured. “Keep him warm, Jon. I’ll come back.” She tucked the heavy cloaks and furs over the two boys; vivid blue eyes watched her as she climbed out of the wagon.

“The fuck are you doing?” The bellow rang out across the yard. On the steps to the holdfast, a man in a heavy cloak appeared, the links of his brigandine glinting in the meagre sunlight, just like the unsheathed blade in his hand. His expression was murderous; few of the Watchmen paid him any mind, nor did the Umber smallfolk or the lesser lords who had gathered at Last Hearth before journeying southwards toward Winterfell with the Night’s Watch.

What was one angry little man against thousands?

Larra stilled, watching the lord, reminding Larra herself of Last Shadow when they had hunted the wolfswood together. She had gained sight of her prey. She remembered this lesser lord. Not quite a Bolton, but not a pleasant companion to sit beside at feasts. Rumour said he could only get hard to rape his wife when he beat her, when she cried in pain.

“Ah… Black Jack,” Larra said softly, a silky whisper that had Edd glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, wary. Black Jack strode down the stairs, heavy cloak whipping in the wind, fresh snow carried on it. “I should have realised this mess was of your making.” She knew where she was, now. She remembered avoiding these lands on her journey north: Black Jack had a brutal reputation.

Her eyes flicked beyond Black Jack, to the figures huddled in the protection of their great hall. Two women stood huddled together, one young and pretty, one older, half her face swollen and purple from bruising. Her shoulders were thrown back, though, and she had her arms protectively around her daughter’s shoulders. Beside them tottered an elderly man whose sigil Larra could just make out on the breast of his richly quilted tunic. Another local lord, one she remembered from the harvest feast. He’d gone through his fourth wife and sought another. His meagre lands made for rich fur trapping. A nasty, mean little man, she recalled; he had smelled of kippers and unwashed flesh.

Edd’s pointed chin rose, his sharp eyes flitting to his brothers, all of whom were armed. To greet anyone with your sword unsheathed was a display of open hostility; Larra should not have been surprised, remembering Black Jack’s reputation for cruelty and stupidity, that he had come charging down the stairs swinging his sword.

In a moment, one of the seasoned Rangers had Black Jack disarmed, flat on his back.

“The Free Folk were invited south beyond the Wall and are under the protection of the King in the North,” said Edd, as two Night’s Watchmen lifted Black Jack to his feet, restraining him. A small crowd had congregated, smallfolk daring to open their doors to watch their lord’s humiliation.

“King in the North?! A bastard,” Black Jack sneered. “No more than a whore’s get.”

“Why are your people still here?” Larra asked sharply, dread settling in the pit of her stomach. “The Starks have called their banners. All the living North are to make their way to Winterfell.” Black Jack squinted at her, recognition seeming to flare in his eyes.

“You… I remember you, the bastard whore of Winterfell,” he sneered, and spat at her feet. Larra raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. She’d befriended direwolves, killed White Walkers and bedded a Thenn. There was absolutely nothing intimidating about this hateful little man. She scoffed in disdain, giving him the kind of look he deserved - the kind of look she had, admittedly, learned from Lady Catelyn - _seething_ , burning disdain.

“You ignore your King’s summons and commit treason in harming the Free Folk under his protection,” said Edd dangerously, hand on the hilt of his sword. “You willingly place your own people in harm’s way in spite of the warnings of a threat of imminent war.”

“Only threat I see is the bastard who calls himself King, who let the wildlings roam free beyond the Wall,” Black Jack sneered. Edd shared a glance with Larra. It was quick, and decisive: They had no time to argue.

“You refuse the call, and willingly endanger Northmen?” Edd said quietly. Black Jack spit again. Edd sighed. “I, Eddison Tollett, acting Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, so named by Jon Snow, King in the North, charge you with treason against your king. I hereby sentence you to die by beheading. Hold him.”

The Watchmen held Black Jack still - for all his cursing and screaming - and Edd struck true. One clean swing of his sword, and Black Jack’s head landed with a dull, wet thump on the slush. His body was dragged beside that of the frozen wildling woman for burning.

There was a brief ruckus in the square, over before it started: On the steps of the holdfast, Black Jack’s wife had taken a blade concealed by her daughter, and stabbed the elderly man in the gut a half a dozen times. The brute died clutching his belly, his expression of utmost surprise. Mother and daughter embraced, as the Night’s Watch stared, and got to work, shepherding the smallfolk. Granaries and root cellars were emptied as quickly as possible, livestock driven ahead, and the vulnerable were bundled into whatever wagons were to hand, wearing every article of clothing they possessed, anything else left behind.

The pieces of Black Jack were left to burn beside the body of the wildling woman he had murdered.

In the wagon, trundling ahead to reach a convenient place to shelter that Larra remembered from her journey northwards, she checked on the boys. They were curled up together, as brothers might, wrapped in furs and blankets, Ragnar’s eyes closed, head nestled against Jon’s chest, his features relaxed in sleep; Jon’s were turned on Bran as he told a story in his calm, eerie voice. Larra checked whether Ragnar had gained some body-heat, worried that he might take on a fever if he didn’t die of hypothermia - that was the word Maester Luwin used. As soon as they reached the sheltered place in the woods Larra remembered, she would wake Ragnar for broth and have the maester see to his arm. She ducked out of the wagon again, and climbed onto Black Alys, who snorted and stamped her feet restlessly; she trotted ahead to catch up to Edd.

“How’s the boy?”

“Warming up nicely,” Larra said softly. She adjusted her furs, squinting in the gentle snows. At least they would have a mild night: It only ever snowed when it was mild, never when it was freezing. Snow was a good sign. She had to bat her eyelashes to get rid of the snowflakes clinging to them. “How are you?”

“Don’t know how Jon did it. The boy…even in the circumstances.”

“Still, it was right you swung the sword.”

“Aye. I know; your way is the old way,” Edd nodded. “I passed the sentence.”

“Why did you?” Larra asked curiously. She knew why she had given her support.

Edd sighed. “There’s what, two hundred more of us, just from that holdfast? That’s two hundred people who won’t be joining the Night King’s army. Two hundred fewer we have to fight if we want to live… His wife and daughter seem to be bearing their grief well enough.” He gave her an ironic little smirk. “Have you seen them?”

“His wife apologised for his rudeness; how she managed to with a face that bruised…the maester’s had a look at her. Her cheekbone will heal,” Larra said, eyes widening slightly. “If there was the time I’d teach knife-skills, the maester had to bandage a wicked cut on her palm.”

“Jon used to tell us stories about your training in the yard,” Edd chuckled. “Said you learned through experience. That’s why you fight with sword and knife.” He had never seen her fight to know that: Jon _had_ talked about her among his brothers.

“Not because I was any better than them,” Larra said quietly, as they ambled along. She sighed. “Quite the opposite; I was a danger to myself if I had nothing in both hands. I almost lost fingers because I tended to grab out in the midst of a skirmish. When we were twelve, Maester Luwin managed to save my finger; I still have scars from the stitches. Couldn’t do anything with the hand for weeks.” She fell silent, lost in memories of the training-yard, of Ser Rodrik and Mikken, of Tomas her stable-boy, and _Hodor_ , of her brothers hitting each other with sparring-swords and shields, Arya being chased by Bran as Rickon’s giggles echoed on the gentle summer air and Father watched from the walkway above, a content smile on his tired face…

“How long since you’ve been home?” Edd asked, guessing where her thoughts were.

Larra sighed. “What is the year?” she asked. Edd told her, and she stared at him. The snow started to fall more heavily, but she didn’t see it.

“Six years,” Larra croaked disbelievingly, and Edd nodded slowly. “Nearly six years since we fled Winterfell.”

Seven since she had last seen Jon.

She wondered whether they had passed their name-day. Were they twenty-three or twenty-four years old?

“How many more miles’ve we got, d’you reckon?” he asked thoughtfully, gazing out at the horizon, limited by the mountains surrounding Long Lake, and the snows.

“Two hundred and fifty miles, give or take a dozen, once we reach the southernmost shore of Long Lake,” Larra said, doing the sums in her head. Her journey north all those years ago had taken far longer, even without the thousands of refugees and livestock. A would-be castellan bastard-daughter of a High Lord; her crippled brother and his simple giant carer; her wild, wrathful baby-brother and his earthy wildling surrogate-mother; two Reeds; and three direwolves. They had made an odd party, even before reaching the great heart-tree… And they had been on foot, avoiding any main thoroughfare or holdfast, hunting to survive and hoping not to get caught for poaching - on her father’s land! The blisters on her feet had long since turned to tough leather; her wool dress and hose and cloak she had traded for furs; and less than half their party might ever see Winterfell again.

She would see _Jon_ again.


	11. Beneath the Sea

**Valyrian Steel**

_11_

_Beneath the Sea_

* * *

A crumbling holdfast provided their shelter, when Larra felt the threat of an ice-storm in her marrow. Like the wildlings, Larra had learned intuition when it came to the hints that nature provided when a storm was brewing. And they were lucky to reach the holdfast when they had: As it was, they lost near a dozen people overnight, from sickness and age and one from cold.

Not Larra’s boys, though. She would not lose another.

Little Jon Umber and the wildling boy Ragnar were thick as thieves and perhaps it was Jon’s influence that helped speed Ragnar’s recovery, beyond the physical mending of his arm, which had been set and splinted and bandaged expertly by a quiet, half-blind maester who never spoke above a murmur. During the ice-storm that shook the rundown walls of the holdfast, Larra watched them in the firelight as Little Jon and Ragnar giggled, and spoke together in hushed secret whispers and played the simple game Larra had carried past the Wall and back, bone die and carved wooden tokens and etched conkers wrapped in a painted doeskin pouch that opened to a game-mat made of scraps of embroidered silk.

She had invented the game long ago, with Maester Luwin’s help. Septa Mordane had helped her with the stitching.

It was her little-brothers’ favourite game, long after Robb had gone off to war with Theon, and Bran and Rickon had wiled away their last hour before an early bedtime playing at a table by the hearth in Father’s solar, as Larra worked and sipped blackcurrant and liquorice tea, and kept an eye on them.

She watched the two little boys, one dark and sombre and one fair and unruly and her heart hurt. And she realised the boys had learned to communicate. Without realising it, and with stunning speed, Little Jon had learned some of the Old Tongue dialect from the Frozen Shore; and Ragnar had learned enough words of the Common Tongue for them to design their own language to communicate. To _play_. Larra remembered the ingenuity of her siblings at play. What had ever been out of their reach that they could not imagine a way to climb to? They were not the only ones: All around Jon and Ragnar, little children seemed to congregate, for games and play.

Larra loved it. She loved the chaos of the children gathered around her like honeybees swarming to wildflowers, buzzing with excitement. She had forgotten how much she missed her little brothers.

As the winds howled, and the babies whimpered, the men argued and the Watch were looked upon to maintain order among the fractious and frightened, and the horses whickered and neighed at another loud clap of thunder that seemed set on bringing the roof down around them, Larra glanced around in the half-light. It was near noon, but no-one would know it, inside the abandoned holdfast, the storm raging, black clouds illuminated silver in brief flashes of lightning, putting their hearts in their mouths as thunder rumbled to a roar, exploding overhead, and sheets of ice-rain thrashed down. The simple luxury of fires made the large rooms close and almost humid, chasing away the cold, with the refugees of the North somehow managing to make the most of the brief respite from their march southwards, cooking, singing, _celebrating_ …

Her stomach ached with loneliness.

Larra glanced up as a familiar silhouette appeared beyond the flames.

“He’s asking for you,” Meera said tiredly.

“Get some soup,” Larra told her quietly, nodding toward a cluster of people tending to a cauldron over a fire, savoury smells wafting from it. She stood slowly, massaging her sore muscles. She had been so long on foot, and on Brandon’s sled, that her muscles had forgotten that they had been trained for riding since Larra was old enough to sit a saddle by herself. Her body had forgotten; and reminding it was painful work. Still, it was necessary, and she preferred riding Black Alys to riding in that blasted wagon. She preferred being away from the strange man-boy who had replaced her brother Bran. It was an unkind thought, but it was an honest one: She didn’t know who Brandon Stark was any more, or if he even still existed.

Meera had been with him all morning: Larra had made the conscious decision to let her, while she looked after Little Jon and Ragnar.

She had made the decision to put _her_ choices first, not Brandon’s needs. Now south of the Wall, and headed to Winterfell, surrounded by people who were happy to _help_ them…it wasn’t just _her_ anymore. And Larra knew there was more to the coming war than Brandon, though the Night King would savour the victory of finding and killing Brandon too…

Larra was choosing to make her own choices _matter_ once again. For…nearly seven years, her life had been all about her younger brothers - nearly all her adult life so far. At sixteen, her family had divided; by eighteen, she was fatherless, and in charge of his castle and lords and lands while her eldest brother was off at war and her younger brothers grew up too quickly, broken and bewildered. Since Lady Catelyn cloistered herself away in Bran’s chamber, ignoring her youngest, most bewildered child, Larra’s entire world had been Rickon - and then Bran, when Lady Catelyn had gone south and never returned, and Bran had awoken, broken. Nothing else had mattered.

Rickon was dead. Brandon was _altered_.

But then, so was she.

If Bran had been replaced with an unrecognisable _Brandon_ , then so too had Larra been replaced by a different version of herself, honed and fashioned for survival, not…not _thriving_. Just scraping by, by the edge of her sword, had been enough; and she had become as sharp and unyielding as a blade, a weapon, a tool…a tool to protect Bran, and to provide for him…

Headed to Winterfell, which she had never thought to ever see again, Larra had decided that enough was enough.

She could not go on for much longer as she had been for too long. It would kill her.

Larra wondered if Bran knew it. She was never quite certain whether he knew her thoughts, or merely her actions.

The holdfast had a godswood, as all Northern castles did, and the weirwood had been the marker for Larra on their journey: They had camped beneath the great scarlet boughs of the weirwood on their way north all those years ago. The holdfast was crumbling, but the weirwood was still growing, enormous, and moving the walls out of its way, its roots rupturing the foundations of the holdfast, and in places holding up the walls, a great canopy of scarlet leaves glowing in the firelight among the ancient hammer-beams, hazy in the rising smoke of the fires below. At the foot of the curling bone-white roots digging through the walls sat Brandon, wrapped in his furs, his eyes for once dark, glinting with dozens of sparks of fire reflected from the fires blazing around them. It made his eyes seem as beady and dark and glittering as a raven’s, and eerily older than his sixteen years.

He always had a guard from the Watch with him now, a favour from Edd though Larra had not asked. She was well aware that Brandon unnerved people. And when they were unnerved, they became frightened and confused, and did things they would later regret. She handed the guard a bowl of soup as she passed; he took it gratefully, offering a murmur of thanks. Larra was known by sight, but not as well-known the way Jon was to his brothers: She was Jon’s sister, no-one could deny that with their looks, but she was a stranger to the men who had claimed her as their sister, as Jon was their brother. She approached Bran, who waited patiently.

“You were gone a long while this time,” she warned carefully.

“I was learning,” Bran murmured. “You needn’t worry.”

“I always worry,” Larra told him, and he nodded subtly to himself as she perched on the bone-white weirwood roots. The earthy, musty smell of organic detritus hit her, and for a second she could believe they were back in the cave again, Brandon entangled in weirwood roots, the cavernous ceiling full of eerie shadows, the ground littered with skeletons, and the whisper and crackle and muted rush of an unknowable language constant around them as a river… They were not in the cave any longer, and only she, Meera and Brandon had escaped it.

She had one, horrifying moment wondering whether the Night King now commanded the Children… Lord Bloodraven… _Hodor_ …

If so, she was glad the Night King’s hordes were so large; there was no way Larra would ever see their decomposing, reanimated corpses with glowing blue eyes…

“You need not worry about Bran, any longer,” the Three-Eyed Raven told her, gazing solemnly at her. “The boy is gone.”

“That is quite clear to me,” Larra said, with a bite. “Where were you today? Watching something illuminating, I hope.”

If he was going to drift off, he had better well make his ventures useful to the rest of them. After their loss, her _effort_ , she thought it was their due. She would not allow Brandon to create a cavern in the wilderness at Winterfell: They needed him to share his knowledge, not hoard it like a miser.

“Yes. I should like to show you,” Brandon said, and Larra watched him cautiously. _Show_ her? She frowned, thinking…of Hodor… He gave her a bland smile, knowing. “Bran Stark had no control over his powers. I am Brandon the Broken, the Three-Eyed Raven. I know you dread my power for what it did to Hodor. I have learned much since then.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to argue that a full moon’s turn had not yet occurred since they fled the cave, so how could he have learned so much? But she did not say it. She was too startled that he realised she blamed him for Hodor. She had never said it aloud…perhaps her Bran was still in there, behind those dark stranger’s eyes… _that_ Bran would have blamed himself too…

“What is it you’d like to show me?” she asked quietly, eyeing him shrewdly.

“Things that were. Things that _are_ … Some things that may yet come to pass,” Brandon said evasively. He held out one large, pale hand that had long ago lost any callouses from training with a sparring-sword in the yard with Ser Rodrick. Now Bran’s greatest weapon was his mind, his awesome, unknowable power… She eyed his palm. “He had no sight.” She flicked her eyes to Brandon’s face, and there was a flicker, just a heartbeat’s familiarity, a ghastly sense of grief and guilt, it was Bran staring at her, trying to explain. She blinked, and he was gone, Brandon the Broken in his place. But her brother _was_ there, hidden however deeply.

“You mean Hodor.”

Brandon nodded. “But you have the wolfblood. And you have blood of Old Valyria. Dragon-dreams, they were called…you need not fear the deep,” Brandon said.

“Are we to go swimming?” Larra asked; she remembered Lord Bloodraven’s warning - _it is beautiful beneath the sea, but if you stay too long, you’ll drown_ …

Brandon’s smile was sad and amused at once. “Unless you have something better to pass your time. The storm shall not break before midday tomorrow. And the boys have not noticed your absence.” Something twisted in her gut, a small, searing stabbing pain, and she flinched, glancing across the hall where she thought she could see the two boys bent over their game, with Meera watching over them as she ate her soup. They had been in Larra’s care fewer than ten days but she had taken on the responsibility of protecting and providing for them. She looked at them and saw her brothers, as they once were; it hurt to think her loyalty and care was not reciprocated…because she felt it was not reciprocated by Bran…

Ungrateful as they had been, in their youth and inexperience, she would not give her brothers for the world: She had given Winterfell and the entire North for them.

Larra looked at this unfamiliar Brandon before her and felt a swell of anger writhing hotly in the pit of her stomach, her hands clenching in her lap. She fought very hard to rein in her temper, to be _constant_ , to be what her brothers had needed her to be after their abandonment; her fingernails dug into the toughened skin of her palms, and she thought of Father’s warnings of the wolfblood in her veins… _Not just wolfblood…dragonfire_ …

She stared at Brandon’s hand for who knew how long; and when she unfurled her fist to place her smaller hand in his, her palm smarted from freshly-reopened wounds that reminded her of childhood, of the wolfblood, of her rage that was so familiar to her in Rickon, of unfairness and pent-up fury and _pain_ …of loneliness, and disdain and unmasked hatred… Scars had torn; tiny, bloody crescents had appeared in her palms, her fingernails biting so deeply into her skin, the only way she used to have of channelling her anger and pain without hurting anyone else. Her fingers shook as she unfurled her clenched fists; she let out a slow, ragged breath, and placed her blood-spotted palm in his. It was startling, to see how small and pretty her hand looked in Brandon’s paw - his skin was unblemished, hers was calloused and tough, but she had fine elegant fingers and except for the colour of one bruise-blackened fingernail she had pretty nails, and slender wrists.

Bran had a _man’s_ hands. He was almost a man. Her _little_ brother…

She glanced into his eyes, and saw Bran there, just a hint of him, the earnestness and stubborn tilt to his chin, the endearing impishness glittering in his eyes mingled with sorrow and wisdom beyond his age. Beneath the icy sheen of a brittle façade, the Three-Eyed Raven was still, at heart, her brother. She had to trust him.

Larra placed her hand in his. She blinked.

And she stood amid an inferno.

Her heart flew to her mouth with the shock of it. One moment, they sat listening to the sleet-storm, the next, they were half a world away. She could feel the searing heat of the flames, but they did not touch her; could taste the dust and smoke on her tongue, but was not choked by it; could smell horse and excrement and exotic spices, sex, wine and sun-baked earth. She had the _memory_ of those smells and the heat and her sight, knew by intuition and memory that some smells meant one thing, others another, though she had never been to this place, never seen Dothraki, had no personal knowledge of sun-baked dusty earth and throbbing bazaars full of exotic wares, only rippling seas of fresh green grass vibrant with the scent of new summer snow…

Copper-skinned men screamed and cursed in a guttural tongue, their oiled braids, meticulously plaited with tiny silver bells, catching alight in the blaze as they tried the great curved doors, barred against their escape. Copper-skinned, rippling with muscles, their goatees braided and dark eyes wide with an unfamiliar terror as flames consumed the great, dusty hall. Braziers had ignited the conflagration: As the _khals_ of the Dothraki screamed and fought against an impossible enemy no blade could subdue, a small woman stood in the very centre of the burning temple - and it _was_ a temple. Larra knew where she was, without ever having been there herself. Those were _khals_ , and this was their most holy temple, the home of the _dosh khaleen_ \- the widowed wives of every khal to come before them. She was in Vaes Dothrak, the only city of the horse-lords.

And the _khals_ were being burned alive by a tiny woman with pale silvery-gold hair shimmering and sparkling in the firelight. She stood serenely in the heart of the _dosh khaleen_ as fire raged around her, illuminating her purple eyes until they glowed. She had a heart-shaped face, with a delicate chin and expressive dark eyebrows, a pretty nose and lush lips; it was a haughty face, very beautiful. _Queenly_.

As the roof came down, the last of the _khals_ huddled at the great door, using all their brute strength to try to open it; it held fast. The woman approached the last standing brazier, the flames burning merrily to join the rest, and as she did so, she smiled at the tallest and strongest of the _khals_ , whose mouth stood agape as he watched the woman’s clothing - Dothraki raiment of a woven grass vest and painted silk trousers - catch alight. The woman lifted her slender hands to the brazier, and heedless of the burning metal, placed her palms upon it: She smiled benignly, and the _khal’s_ eyes widened as the flames roared toward him.

Larra had seen men swiftly, cleanly beheaded. Seen them skewered by sword and spear. Seen them torn apart by mindless corpses. Seen them drowned. She had never watched men burning alive. The way their hair caught alight, the way their skin smouldered and blistered before it blackened and cracked with angry red fissures, the stench of their burning skin and their hair, the way their eyeballs melted down their cheeks as their screams turned high-pitched as all sense fled them, leaving only pain…

She felt bile rise in the back of her throat, burning, but refused to look away.

The woman’s clothes burned away, leaving her smooth pale skin unmarred, baring her small, high breasts and the pale golden hair between her legs. She did not see Larra; she stared benignly at the _khals_ as they screamed and died in agony, their horsehair vests and oiled braids feeding the fires that consumed them. The largest of the _khals_ glared, and tried to dodge the flames long enough to reach her, his huge hands twitching to choke the life from her.

Weapons were forbidden in Vaes Dothrak, where all _khalasaars_ were one blood. But a _khal_ knew how to kill without one. The flames caught him, before he could reach her. The woman stared with unflinching, bored detachment as the fires consumed him before her eyes: It was the detachment, almost amusement, that made a shiver go up and down Larra’s spine.

 _Don’t look away. Father will know if you do_ … Father had always taught them that if they were to take a man’s life, they owed it to them to look them in the eye; if they found they could not, perhaps they did not deserve the fate you had condemned them to.

But this…

 _This_ was…something else entirely.

There was… _righteousness_ , amusement in this woman’s eyes that Larra found unsavoury.

Cloaked in the protection of pure zeal, she seemed to be revelling in the deaths she was causing, wielding fire as a weapon. The flames licked at her skin almost lovingly, the _khals’_ screams died, and the great fiery structure started to groan, embers raining down.

Larra was reminded of the Red Woman whom Edd had told her about. A priestess of R’hollor, the Lord of Light. _Only death can pay for life_ … She had said so to Jon when she resurrected him, Edd had told Larra.

The woman had burned the _khals_ ; intending to or not, she had offered them up to the Red God. And he had granted his protection of her in turn, leaving her unharmed by the flames that consumed the Dothraki’s most sacred temple.

Huge doors cracked and groaned and fell; the roof started to crumble, and the woman strolled to the entrance. The great fire could be seen for miles; every man, woman and child in Vaes Dothrak gathered to weep and scream and stare in awe and horror as a single small woman traipsed past the smouldering, cracked, unrecognisable bodies of the fierce _khals_ to stand naked before them, her shoulders thrown back, staring imperiously - expectantly - around at the masses gathered, their faces shining with tears at the ruination of their most sacred place, the deaths of their leaders… A single, tiny woman with small tits and shining silver-gold hair and a cool demeanour in the face of true horror, surrounded by fire, and the masses fell to their knees.

She had killed the _khals_ and stepped unscathed from the monstrous pyre she had made for them.

Larra might have been impressed, if she wasn’t so sceptical. If she did not dread that eerie serenity, the glitter of arrogance in the woman’s eyes as she had pushed that last brazier at the _khals_ …if she had not _smiled_ as she set men alight.

It was that glimmer of relish, almost amusement, _victory_ that unsettled Larra, had Father’s softly-spoken stories of the Mad King murmuring through her mind.

There was nothing amusing about death, nothing to relish in acts of violence. It was destructive; it caused dark spots to appear on the heart, plaguing the mind…or it _should_.

She distrusted anyone who smiled in the face of suffering of their making.

“Daenerys Stormborn,” said a gentle voice in her ear, and Larra jumped, glancing around. Her jaw dropped.

Bran stood beside her.

His hands were clasped loosely behind his back, watching the tiny woman with a detached sort of curiosity, as if she was an unusual beetle he was not quite certain of.

Brandon stood, several inches taller than her, lean as a young wolf. He seemed taller to her because it was so startling to see him fully upright. She had become accustomed to looking down to speak to him. And he was clothed, not in the furs they had wrapped themselves in for years, but in the Northern dress he had grown up in: a quilted tunic under a leather doublet, linens beneath, his boots polished to a shine. Still finer than what Jon had worn. No armour, though. It struck Larra that, especially in his visions, Brandon was still very much vulnerable to harm. He did not wear the direwolf-embellished collar he had donned as _de-facto_ Lord of Winterfell. Nothing about his dress indicated his Stark heritage, only the Northern cut of the doublet. Nothing denoted his allegiance.

Her lips parted, to ask, but she realised even as the thought came, it didn’t matter. Inside his mind, Bran was whole. _It is beautiful beneath the sea_ …

“Daenerys Targaryen,” she said softly, clearing her throat, turning back to the woman. She was similar age to Larra, perhaps a little younger - she _looked_ younger, due to circumstances that never calloused her palms or bruised and scarred her body, sapped the joy from her mind. Larra felt years older than her true age. She was certain she looked them, too. Pain and despair took its toll on the body. “Why did she burn the _khals_?”

Brandon turned dark, glinting eyes on her; behind him, the fire raged, consuming everything, and the temple of the _dosh khaleen_ collapsed, sparks flying a hundred feet into the air, spitting at the crowds pleading supplication to Daenerys Stormborn.

“When her husband died, the wife of Khal Drogo should have returned here to live out her days with the _dosh khaleen_ ,” Brandon murmured, watching Daenerys Stormborn carefully. “She did not: The _khals_ were discussing her fate when she set them alight.”

“Her fate?”

“She was their _khaleesi_ : Her place was with the crones of all the _khals_ who came before,” Brandon said softly. “She dishonoured their traditions when she refused to take up her place as one of the wise-women of the _dosh khaleen_.”

“She dishonoured worse when she burned their sacred temple,” Larra murmured darkly, frowning at Daenerys Stormborn. A quiet smile haunted the corners of Brandon’s lips.

“Daenerys Stormborn killed the _khals_ \- all of them. She proved her physical strength to every _khalasaar_ gathered at Vaes Dothrak.”

“Even if it is an illusion?” Larra frowned, and Brandon’s smile widened.

“Now, why do you say that?”

“What the Red Woman told Edd…only death can pay for life,” Larra said. “She offered those men to the flames; the Lord of Light accepted the offering and granted her protection.” Brandon gave her a measuring look, smiling contentedly.

“The Dothraki follow strength. And the most powerful blood-rider gains the best mount. And Daenerys Stormborn…her mount is the most fearsome any _khal_ could ever dream of. Balerion reborn…”

She blinked, and the vision changed. A pure forget-me-not sky made her eyes water, the sun high and hot above. Behind, a column of black smoke rose a thousand feet into the sky, and a river of bodies throbbed as it wound through two enormous horse statues glinting in the sunshine that made the rocks around Larra hiss with the heat, as if they stood among burning embers. Blood-riders on fiery stallions formed the head of the column, led by a _dragon_.

Larra’s breath caught in her throat. A _dragon_. A real, live dragon. He was extraordinary. Hulking, reptilian and predatory, elegant and sleek, there was a terrifying beauty to him. Any mammoth Larra had seen in the True North could have walked comfortably down his gullet, and his wings must have spanned two-hundred feet unfurled. They were leathery and black, the tough membranes washed with blood-red as the sun shone through them, his wings snapping and unfurling with the sound of thunder-claps; his horns and spinal-plates were blood-red, and his eyes smouldered like fiery red embers. As he snarled and roared to the sky, Larra saw his teeth, triple rows of fangs longer than her forearms, black as onyx and lethal as the Valyrian steel sword belted at her waist.

Queen Visenya’s sword. Her ancestress.

Also the ancestor of Daenerys Stormborn, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. The first dragon-rider in centuries.

“She rides Drogon, named for her dead Dothraki husband,” Bran murmured, standing placidly beside Larra as she gazed in wonder, drinking in the dragon, almost aching with grief at the thought that…Bran would’ve _loved_ to see it; _her_ Bran… So would Arya… She was so consumed with grief over her dead siblings that Larra barely noticed the tiny speck on the dragon’s back; a woman with her silvery-gold hair coiled in elaborate plaits that made Larra’s fingers twitch to pat her own unkempt braids. It was the first time in a very long time she had considered her appearance at all; she knew she looked half a wildling herself, and it had never mattered until now, narrowing her eyes at the impeccable Khaleesi.

Riding on Drogon’s back, Daenerys Stormborn called to the Dothraki blood-riders. “What’s she saying to them?” Larra asked, turning to Brandon. He smiled serenely.

“Listen,” he said simply, and Larra frowned in the blazing sun to stare at the Khaleesi. Her lips parted in wonder - but of course, these were Brandon’s memories now, and he had coaxed her into them; she understood the guttural Dothraki tongue, because Brandon now did.

Her voice raised so the masses could hear, Daenerys Stormborn addressed the column of blood-riders. And Larra listened, and understood: “ _Every_ khal _who ever lived chose three blood-riders to fight beside him and guard his way! But I am not a_ khal _! I will not choose three blood-riders. I choose you all_!” The blood-riders roared their approval, _arakhs_ raised to the air, their mounts snorting and prancing at the ruckus. “ _I will ask more of you than any_ khal _has ever asked of his_ khalasaar _!_ ” Another roar, more _arakhs_ raised to Daenerys Stormborn, dust churning, and the great black dragon shook his spiny head, adding his roar to the din.

Daenerys Targaryen smiled in satisfaction, her eyes a darker purple due to the black vest she wore, a pearl ring draped on a leather thong around her neck, and raised her voice once more: “ _Will you ride the wooden horses across the black salt sea? Will you kill my enemies in their iron suits and tear down their stone houses?_ ”

Larra narrowed her eyes on the Targaryen girl. _Kill my enemies in their iron suits and tear down their stone houses…_

Stone houses. _Castles_. Westeros.

“ _Will you give me the Seven Kingdoms, the gift_ Khal _Drogo promised me before the Mother of Mountains_?” Daenerys Stormborn bellowed, and the khalasaar screamed its support. “ _Are you with me? Now…and always_?”

“You are dissatisfied,” Brandon murmured to her, and Larra turned her eyes from Daenerys Stormborn with her elaborate braids and terrifyingly beautiful dragon and frowned.

“Yes. Did she succeed? Has she brought the Dothraki across the seas?”

“Yes,” Brandon said softly. “One hundred and sixty thousand Dothraki screamers. Seven and a half thousand Unsullied infantry sword- and spearmen, with three thousand training boys. Two thousand Meereenese freed slaves who have taken up arms to support the Breaker of Chain’s cause. One hundred ships from the Iron Fleet and three thousand men to crew them, led by Yara and Theon Greyjoy. A combined fleet from Yunkai and Astapor commandeered, along with their crews, after an unsuccessful attack on Slavers’ Bay… Even now, an emissary from Dorne resides as guest to Queen Daenerys Targaryen on Dragonstone while they negotiate a potential alliance through the Queen’s hand, Tyrion Lannister, and her new Master of Whisperers, Lord Varys: Lady Olenna Tyrell determines to get the measure of the Dragon Queen before committing the forces of the Reach to her cause.”

Larra wanted to sit down. She could not catch her breath as she gaped, watching the _khalasaar_ surge past her in the dust.

Over two _hundred_ _thousand_ men at the command of a dragon-rider.

She frowned, glancing over her shoulder, at the dragon now snapping its wings straight. With a sound like the clap of thunder, he launched himself into the sky, beating his wings, churning up dust; Larra raised her arms to guard her face against the sting of sand and dust, but felt nothing. Brandon stood beside her, unflinching.

“It is only memory,” he told her gently. “It cannot harm you.”

She blinked, lowering her arms. The dust never settled; the greatest _khalasaar_ the world had ever known followed their new Khaleesi on her fierce mount, churning the dust and sand beneath hundreds of thousands of hooves, slaves on foot beside their masters. Vaes Dothrak had emptied.

“Why the Dothraki?” Larra mused, narrowing her eyes on the speck that Drogon had become. “One dragon and half a thousand Unsullied would suit her purposes.” She remembered her lessons with Maester Luwin, the convoluted, frustrating, months-long campaigns she and her brothers had designed and played out in _cyvasse_. “Kill her enemies in their armour, and tear down castles? She doesn’t need nearly two-hundred thousand Dothraki screamers for that. Why seize leadership of them? What are they, but a deficit to her resources? She intends to invade. _Winter is coming_.”

Brandon smiled blandly, and touched her shoulder. She blinked, and started. _Robert_ _Baratheon_ sat at a table, sheer curtains billowing softly in a breeze carrying birdsong into a light, airy room with pale gold stone floors and painted walls, a grand bed carved with vines and antlers, dressed in cotton and richly-embroidered silk. A squire in red was just disappearing through a secret passage, taking away an empty carafe; a full one sat on the inlaid table by Robert’s hand, his wine glass full almost to the brim. The door opened, and Cersei Lannister appeared, pausing on the steps. In the soft golden light, the Queen looked almost pretty, with her hair shimmering to her waist, and a layered pink silk gown draped elegantly and belted at the waist with gold plate links. An elegant locket of gold glinted at her breast, a Lannister lion roaring on its face. Hers was drawn in the characteristic frown Larra remembered.

“I’m sorry your marriage to Ned Stark didn’t work out,” she said gently. “You seemed so good together.”

“Glad I could do something to make you happy,” Robert said despondently. Even half-drunk, he looked troubled. Cersei sauntered into the chamber, pretty hands clasped before her, a delicate organza shawl draped from her elbows, glinting gold.

“Without a Hand, everything will fall to pieces,” she warned, resting her hands on the posts of the empty chair opposite Robert.

“I suppose this is where you tell me to give the job to your brother Jaime,” Robert grumbled irritably.

A tiny smile played at Cersei’s lips. “No. He's not serious enough. I'll say this for Ned Stark; he's serious enough. Was it really worth it? Losing him this way?” Larra frowned at Brandon; he was watching Robert carefully.

“I don't know,” Robert sighed, and set his wine-glass down, rising from his seat. “But I do know this: If the Targaryen girl convinces her horse-lord husband to invade, and the Dothraki horde crosses the Narrow Sea, we won't be able to stop them.” Again, Larra glanced at Brandon. This was many years ago; Father was still alive, she was sure, and serving as Robert’s new Hand following the death of Jon Arryn.

Robert had _predicted_ Daenerys Targaryen’s invasion.

“The Dothraki don't sail, every _child_ knows that,” Cersei said, and Robert turned away from her, gazing out of the open window, the pretty balcony that oversaw all of King’s Landing, a great, glittering, stinking city of orange and terracotta roofs, sprawling markets, a thriving port-city with the best brothels on the continent and more work for the smallfolk who flocked there hoping for a better life, more entertainments for the indolent and wealthy. “They don't have discipline, they don't have armour. They don't have siege weapons.”

“It's a neat little trick you do,” Robert sighed. “You move your lips, and your father's voice comes out.”

Even as Cersei scoffed gently, Larra smiled to herself: Did they not all become their parents? She echoed Father often enough, as she knew Jon always did. “Is my father wrong?”

“Let's say Viserys Targaryen lands with forty-thousand Dothraki screamers at his back… We hole up in our castles, a wise move. Only a _fool_ would meet the Dothraki in an open field… They leave us in our castles. They go from town to town, looting and burning, killing every man who can't hide behind a stone wall, stealing all our crops and livestock, enslaving all our women and children,” Robert said fiercely, and Cersei moved to the table, pouring herself a glass of wine. Robert’s voice turned soft, sorrowful, as he asked, “How long do the people of the Seven Kingdoms stand behind their absentee King, their cowardly King hiding behind high walls? When do the people decide that Viserys Targaryen is the rightful monarch after all?!”

Cersei thought before answering, sitting herself down before the table. It struck Larra as an exquisitely intimate moment between Robert and Cersei - between the King and his wife. No courtiers, no servants, just them, sharing a glass of wine, and discussing the greatest threat to Westeros in three centuries. “We still outnumber them.”

“Which is the bigger number?” Robert asked her. “Five or one?”

Cersei rolled her eyes impatiently. “Five.”

“ _Five_ ,” Robert said, holding up his hand, fingers splayed. His other hand, he raised as a fist. “ _One_. One army. A real _army_ united behind one leader, with _one_ purpose…” Robert refilled his glass, shaking his head. “Our purpose died with the Mad King. Now we've got as many armies as there are men with gold in their purse. And everybody wants something different. Your father wants to own the world. Ned Stark wants to run away and bury his head in the snow…”

“What do you want?” Cersei asked. Robert smiled sadly, raising his wine-glass. The Queen rolled her eyes, barely hiding her disdain. Robert drained half his glass before he sat, sighing.

“We haven't had a real fight in nine years,” he sighed miserably. “Backstabbing doesn't prepare you for a fight, and that's all the realm is now. Backstabbing and scheming and arse-licking and money-grubbing… Sometimes I don't know what holds it together.”

“Our marriage,” Cersei mused, and Robert started to laugh. They caught each other’s eye, and Cersei joined him, smiling. She looked almost pretty.

“So, here we sit, seventeen years later, holding it all together,” Robert sighed heavily. “Don't you get tired?”

“Every day,” Cersei admitted.

“How long can hate hold a thing together?” Robert pondered miserably.

“Well, seventeen years is… _quite_ a long time.”

“Yes, it is,” Robert agreed, raising his glass in a toast tinged with irony.

Cersei raised her own glass. “Yes, it is… What was she like?”

Robert went still, staring at his wife. “You've never asked about her, not once. Why now?”

“At first, just saying her name, even in private, felt like I was breathing life back into her. I thought if I didn't talk about her, she'd just… _fade_ _away_ for you,” Cersei said softly, and Larra knew who she was speaking of. Lyanna. Her mother. The reason Cersei had had Larra flogged all those years ago; _she_ had breathed life into Lyanna again. “When I realized that wasn't going to happen, I refused to ask out of spite. I didn't want to give you the satisfaction of thinking I _cared_ to ask. And eventually it became clear that my spite didn't mean anything to you; as far as I could tell, you actually enjoyed it!”

“So why now?”

For a long moment, Cersei did not answer. When she did, her words were tinged with sadness and regret. “What harm could Lyanna Stark's ghost do to either of us that we haven't done to each other a hundred times over?”

“You want to know the horrible truth?” Robert sighed, leaning heavily over the table. “Until I saw Ned’s bastard girl at Winterfell, smiling, with flowers in her hair…I couldn’t even remember what she looked like. She was the one thing I ever wanted. Someone took her away from me, and seven kingdoms couldn't fill the hole she left behind.”

Cersei pondered this, then said, “I felt something for you once, you know.”

“I know,” Robert said sadly.

“Even after we lost our first boy...for quite a while, actually,” Cersei said softly. “Was it ever possible for us? Was there ever a time, ever a moment?”

Robert’s honesty was terrible, and may have sealed his fate. “No. Does that make you feel better, or worse?”

“It doesn't make me feel anything,” Cersei admitted. She set her wine-glass down, and left the King’s chamber. She left Robert to his wine, and his regret.

And Larra was left reeling. He had been a reluctant King, but Robert Baratheon had been one of the best military minds of the age. Only once defeated in battle, by Lord Randyll Tarly. He had laid waste to the royalists’ armies, defeating every other enemy, he had slain Prince Rhaegar in single-combat in the rushing waters of the Trident, caved in his breast-plate, crushed every rib he had…

If there was one thing Robert Baratheon knew, it was war. He had proven himself an immense warrior, a skilled commander, and a completely disinterested monarch - he had given the Seven Kingdoms nearly eighteen years of almost unbroken peace, but bought that peace at a terrible price, considering all that came after, and all that had happened before.

She had never been to King’s Landing, of course, never set foot inside the Red Keep. Had this always been the King’s chamber? Would Robert have rested easy in the Mad King’s chamber? From what she knew of Robert’s bloodlust for dead Targaryens, she thought he might; this might even have been Rhaegar’s chamber.

Had her brother and sister played in this room? Rhaenys and baby Aegon. Had their giggles and coos echoed off the golden stone, their mother singing to them, perhaps, as her ladies flocked about her? Perhaps she sat out on the balcony, enjoying the sunshine, yearning for the Water Gardens of her home.

Larra sighed, and turned away from Robert, still drinking his wine, staring morosely at the inlaid table.

“Daenerys Targaryen’s husband was dead before his _khalasaar_ could sack enough cities to fund her campaign,” Brandon murmured, “but she achieved her aim regardless. Now it is she who rides at the head of the _khalasaar_ , who brought Dothraki to Westeros for the first time in our history… How shall Cersei proceed?”

“I know Cersei Lannister very little,” Larra frowned, “and the Targaryen girl even less.”

“True; but you trained for this with Jon and Robb and Theon,” Brandon murmured. “Westeros faces invasion. How would a monarch proceed?”

“Robert made a disinterested king, but he was a strategist to rival Tywin Lannister. I imagine… I imagine he would have been impressed the lad named for him died undefeated in battle,” Larra said, thinking of Robb with a twisting, painful, hideous feeling in her gut. “Cersei was foolish and impetuous but has maintained her position this long for a reason. When she learns Daenerys Stormborn has landed in Westeros with armies of Dothraki screamers…she will remember what Robert said; how could she not, when it was the only time she ever asked about Lyanna…”

“So what will Cersei do?”

“She will not allow her armies to hole up behind high walls; but she will remain protected behind them. After all, she is not a warrior-queen. Certainly her brother the Kingslayer will lead her armies,” Larra said, after a moment’s consideration. “If I were Cersei I would devise a way to destroy the Dothraki without ever having to meet in the field of battle; as her father destroyed the Northern army when he arranged the Red Wedding… I would find a way to kill the dragons before they could turn King’s Landing to ash. History tells us they are not invulnerable. Use the past as a weapon against the Mad King’s daughter…destroy any credibility before she lands on our shores, unite the lords of Westeros against her to fling her back into the Narrow Sea. Less than Cersei Lannister on the Iron Throne, the lords of Westeros want a return of the Targaryen dynasty.”

Her _family_.

“Brandon… We must learn more about Daenerys Targaryen,” Larra said softly, dread curdling her stomach as she fully evaluated the implications of Daenerys Targaryen’s invasion. She had come to claim the Iron Throne. The _Seven_ Kingdoms. Jon was King in the North: the North had declared its independence from the Iron Throne when Robb marched south with the Northern army.

It was always the Starks, who acted as catalyst for rebellion. Rickard and Brandon Stark: Eddard and Robb Stark. A father had gone south to plead for his son’s life: A son had raised an army to protect his father’s life.

The North would not kneel to a Targaryen queen any more than they would the Lannister one.

Gone were the days the North knelt to anyone.

And history told them what Targaryens did to those who refused to kneel…

“How is it Daenerys Targaryen came to be in Vaes Dothrak, to usurp the _khalasaars_?”

“ _That_ is a long journey,” Brandon said softly, his eyes alight with something close to merriment, as if he had been waiting for and was delighted by her request. “And I am gratified you are not so wholly consumed with the Night King that you underestimate the threat brewing in the south… There is one thing I would show you before we go…” He smiled softly, and the memory changed…


	12. Waking the Dragon

**Valyrian Steel**

_12_

_Waking the Dragon_

* * *

The Mad King was hideous to look upon. He brought to her mind the Night King’s wights.

Beard untrimmed and wild, matted and unwashed, his hair fell in thick tangles to his waist, glinting a dull steely-silver in the light of thousands of candles. His fingernails were long, cracked and brittle, yellowed, untrimmed. His face was sunken and gaunt from malnutrition, his eyes bloodshot, heavy black bruises hanging beneath them from exhaustion. There was something faraway and distracted in his eyes, but at times they glinted with a sharp, suspicious lucidity. He was richly clothed, and wore on his head a huge, almost ungainly crown of deep red-gold, sitting low and heavy on his head, each of its points a dragon-head set with gemstone eyes that glinted in the candlelight, giving them an almost sentient feel. The crown of Aegon IV - Aegon the Unworthy.

 _Apt_ , Larra thought, cringing away from the madman in horror and disgust. She had _heard_ \- it was another thing entirely to _see_ …

The King sat at the head table in a grand hall opulently decorated for feasting and celebrations - she remembered the Great Hall at Winterfell decorated with greenery and sweet herbs and white flowers from the glasshouses in preparation for King Robert’s arrival: The garlands of vibrant, unusual flowers wreathed around the hall with sashes of vibrant silks put all their weeks of preparation to shame. The air was redolent with the perfume of tens of thousands of flowers - camellias and rhododendrons and roses of every colour, delicate jasmine and sweet orange-blossoms, unusual irises and elegant calla lilies, dangling chandeliers of orchids of a dozen colours and sizes, deep purple chrysanthemums and velvety white peonies, scented astilbe and hydrangea blossoms the size of her head, honeysuckle and columbines, showy gladioli and foxgloves, penstemons, hundreds of dahlias and alstroemeria, velvety golden-tongued blood-red snapdragons, waxy tuberoses and a hundred different kinds of perfumed narcissi. Their perfume mingled with the scents of the hundreds of nobles gathered, with the aromas of rich foods displayed for the feasters, the braziers burning with sweet herbs and the enormous hearths alive with firelight that sent sparks crackling and dancing, wafting tendrils of fragrant smoke to the older lords and ladies sharing potent tipples on elegant chaises, observing the dancers and playing dice games. It was almost stifling in the great hall: At the high windows, the shutters open and draped with samite, fat snowflakes drifted lazily past, glowing in the moonlight. Fine white linens clothed the sweeping feast-tables, which were groaning with decadence, gold glinting and fine crystal sparkling in the light of the thousands of candles, exquisite delicacies - cherries soaked in liqueur, gilded chestnuts, tiny delicate pastries filled with flavoured cream and glazed with caramel and decorated in elaborate towers with flowers, tiny dishes of sweetmeats dotted about and trenchers of fine cheeses, crusty bread, pickles and chutneys - displayed for the feasters to pick at as they finished the savoury courses and high in a gallery an orchestra played beautifully: Hundreds of dancers ignored their King as they enjoyed themselves, dancing a more boisterous country dance made elegant for the court.

Larra’s stomach jolted. There they were.

Her family.

Benjen was young - perhaps ten, the same age Bran had been when he fell: He had Jon’s narrow pale face and dark glinting eyes, but this was not the Benjen of Larra’s memory - this was the boy Benjen, long before he had taken the black, when his family had been whole, and the world theirs to explore and enjoy. He danced eagerly with a slim young woman with long dark hair and expressive eyebrows, thoughtful, kind grey eyes and a beautiful smile that flashed out of nowhere - _wolfish_ \- and stunned casual observers, making them do a double-take. She wore a fine grey gown embroidered from the hem to her knees with silver winter-roses glinting with tiny beads; the modest neckline was decorated with a high collar all Northern noblewomen wore, stormy-grey silk adorned with silver direwolves at the points and embroidered heavily with Northern flowers Larra could name by scent blindfolded. The girl’s hair was loose to her waist, except for the coil of twists and braids drawn from her face to the back of her head, the hairstyle Northern ladies called a crown - the same hairstyle Larra had always adopted for feasts and formal occasions: Lyanna had woven tiny white snow-bells and sprigs of palest purple-white lavender into her braids, decorating her crown.

“’Tis no wonder Father’s smile always died at the sight of me,” Larra said sorrowfully, her heart burning as she gazed at her _mother_.

For the very _first time_.

Larra’s heart stuttered.

Lyanna’s beauty was wild, unpolished; her laughter was free, her smiles wolfish and untamed. She danced with an unconscious enthusiasm, and enjoyed herself without constraint. Her gown was not the finest in the hall, by any stretch: She was not the most refined. But there was an earthiness, a natural charisma and joy that lit Lyanna from within. It shone in her eyes and made her smiles earnest and entrancing, and desired; half the men who saw her smile found themselves half in love with Lyanna Stark, wanting to ensure she smiled again - and just for them.

“You are very like her, in many ways,” Brandon said softly. “But you are not Lyanna reborn. Father knew that. You are utterly yourself, and always have been.” Larra turned to look at her brother - Brandon was watching with heartbroken sorrow as Lyanna danced with a roguishly handsome, huge man with the Stark direwolf emblazoned at the breast of his fine wool tunic - he had Father’s impressive square jaw but Benjen’s inky dark hair, and his smile was more boisterous. Her Uncle Brandon. There was a lot of Robb in his face, Larra thought, a blade twisting in her gut as she watched. Clusters of young ladies flocked about Brandon, eyeing him as if they were dying of thirst in a desert, and he was the oasis to save their lives. All around Lyanna, fine silks shimmered and jewelled hair-nets shone, but it was Lyanna, dancing with her wild smile and pretty flowers and modest neckline, who drew the gaze of half the men and women gathered at Harrenhall. 

Including Prince Rhaegar.

Larra could not swallow the lump that rose in her throat when she saw him, staring at her mother across the great hall. Her heart thumped inside her chest, hurting.

This was it. The beginning of their family’s misfortune that had plagued them for two successive generations.

She had always been told Rhaegar was beautiful. He was. Not the way she remembered Jaime Lannister, beautiful and golden, and almost too perfectly handsome, or even her brothers, with fierce jaws and solemn eyes and unexpected grins. Rhaegar’s face was solemn, his features even and masculine, and very compelling to look upon. He had passed his lips on to Larra and Jon, and his cheekbones - high, sharper than Valyrian steel… And he was _tall_ , very tall, deceptively slender-looking in his tailored tunic; he had broad shoulders, and a muscular torso and strong legs. A warrior’s build. Jon had Rhaegar’s broad flat shoulders but was slenderer in Larra’s memory than Rhaegar, and Larra doubted life at Castle Black and beyond the Wall had done much to bulk him up since she saw him last. Jon had the shape of Rhaegar’s eyes, but the colour of their mother’s Stark grey eyes, so dark they appeared almost black in certain light.

Larra had Rhaegar’s eyes exactly. Deep violet, almost indigo.

And his glinted in the candlelight, watching Lyanna as if entranced, sweeping from the glittering hem of her gown to her narrow waist - a tiny hourglass waistline Larra had inherited - to her high, plump breasts and the shine of her dark hair as she twirled and danced and smiled. With a jolt, finding herself weak-kneed and stunned as she gaped, Larra realised Lyanna was dancing with _Robert_. She had only ever seen him overweight and unhappy. Robert, the Lord of Storm’s End, a young man in his prime, honed for battle, was _handsome_. Fiercely handsome, dark-haired, with vibrant eyes and an impish, unconcerned air; he gazed at Lyanna as if she was the _only_ woman in the world. Lyanna’s smile had cooled as she danced with him: Her eyes flitted to her older brother, to Ned, who looked down at the floor almost shame-facedly before turning his gaze to a pretty violet-eyed lady in a lilac silk gown, her dark hair glittering with silver jewels. Lady Ashara Dayne, once rumoured to be Larra’s mother…

The music forced a change of partner as the dance changed: Rhaegar sipped his wine, watching Lyanna over the gilt rim of the crystal glass, a yearning, hungry, sorrowful look on his face.

He sighed, shoulders rising and falling, and slipped into an empty chair beside a startlingly beautiful olive-skinned woman with twinkling dark eyes and a delicate demeanour, draped in a glinting blood-red, sleeveless gown cut simply and sensuously, without corseting or darts for shape, a trailing hemline and a neckline cut with sensual elegance to the navel, hinting at her tiny breasts and showing a faint glimmer of silvery-pink scars on her flat belly - the mark of motherhood. Draped from her slender throat, glittering sensuously all the way to her navel, was a necklace of gold filigree sunbursts and soaring dragons linked together, set with rubies and garnets. Her black hair shone as it wove to her waist, tucked away from her face to show off her delicate cheekbones and glinting dark eyes. She wore a gauzy shawl of gold Qartheen lace draped over her elbows, and looked slightly ill but incredibly lovely as she sipped apricot liqueur and played a game of cards with her lady-in-waiting, just about hiding her winces of discomfort as she fidgeted subtly in her high-backed chair piled with cushions.

She made such a striking figure, with her glossy hair and her simple gown and sensuous eyes and that glittering necklace, the rich colours of gold and blood-red so exquisite against her skin, for the first time in years, Larra’s hands twitched to grind pigments and drench herself in the odour of turpentine and _paint_ …

One day she would paint Princess Elia. Hers was an exquisite beauty that deserved to be immortalised… And with Jon declared King in the North, an independent kingdom - they had to think of the future, of overtures that must be made to other sovereign nations: How long could Cersei Lannister maintain dominion over the elusive, dangerous Martells when Targaryens, with all their dragons, could not?

Amends must be made. And no two Houses had suffered more at Targaryen hands than the Martells and the Starks. One sister and her two babies, an uncle: A father, a son, a daughter. Their deaths had forever shaped the world in which Larra lived, in which Jon was now a declared King and had to rebuild from the destruction created by civil wars.

Two civil wars, spanning two generations: Provoked first by the Targaryens, and then by their successors the Lannisters.

It was Houses Stark and Martell who had suffered the brunt of their cruelty. They had lost too much. Though their cultures were opposite as fire and ice, Larra thought they had common ground. That had to be enough to make a start…

As Rhaegar joined Princess Elia, the lady-in-waiting stacked the painted cards neatly and slipped away, leaving husband and wife to lean in to each other and converse under cover of the noise of the festivities. The candlelight glinted off Rhaegar’s pale golden-silver hair, illuminating his eyes to an impossible deep purple, and it was clear to Princess Elia that her husband’s gaze would remain riveted on the girl in the grey gown with her infectious smile no matter what they spoke of. There was an amused, fond, almost indulgent look in Elia’s pretty dark eyes, as she gazed between them, Rhaegar tenderly stroked her hand, murmuring to her in spite of his distraction.

“You are in discomfort,” Rhaegar said finally, when Lyanna had disappeared from his view, to enjoy a drink with her brothers and catch her breath, murmuring quietly with Ned Stark and frowning at Robert Baratheon, who was flirting shamelessly with a cluster of young ladies glittering with jewels and swathed in asymmetric gowns Larra would have associated with Cersei Lannister, had she been in power, and present at the tourney. Larra gazed yearningly after her family, but Brandon remained focused on the royal couple: She had to stay. Rhaegar gave Elia a thoughtful, considerate look, shaking his head. “The journey was too much, and too soon.”

“The decision was made when Lord Varys whispered into your father’s ear of Lord Whent’s tourney,” Elia said, her voice rich and soft and accented, bringing to Larra’s mind spices and exotic perfumes and indolent afternoons lazing in the perfumed shades of a bright hot sun she had never experienced. There was also a bite to her tone, the sting of the poison her family was known for. Her dark eyes flicked briefly to the King, staring agitatedly but unseeingly into the writhing masses dancing boisterously in spite of his presence. Rhaegar’s eyes fell on his father, and a cold rage flitted across his face ever so briefly - a second, and it was gone, but Larra saw it, saw the muscle ticking in his jaw the same way Jon’s did when he was trying to control his fury - and Elia saw it. “This tourney would have been the perfect opportunity to declare you intend to marry again.”

Rhaegar blinked, startled, and turned to his wife, looking appalled.

“I _do_?”

Elia’s smile was sad but accepting. “You yearn for more children, Rhaegar, I see it every time you are with our daughter; you ache to ensure her childhood, Aegon’s, is nothing like your own lonely one. You would fill the nursery to bursting with babies if you could.”

“ _El_ …” he sighed, shaking his head, his indigo eyes wide. “We have Rhaenys and our little Egg, and are blessed to have both. _And_ you. Do you think I am so selfish I’d risk you just to put another babe in your belly?”

“If they take after me, our children shall not live long. Your mother’s luck proves that there is no certainty though the babe survives birth,” Elia said, grimly and honestly, glancing at the King once more as Rhaegar gaped; a chair sat empty beside the King, Queen Rhaella’s seat. He had forbidden her from leaving the Red Keep in years, long before the Defiance of Duskendale, and young Prince Viserys was absent also. Viserys, one pregnancy out of a dozen to come to term after Rhaegar’s birth, Rhaella’s only child after Rhaegar to survive past infancy. And Elia had always endured her fragile health as best she was able, though she had remained bedridden half a year after her daughter’s birth, and delivering her son had almost cost her life.

Rhaegar knew it: He had no answer.

“You need another wife,” Elia murmured, though her anguish at the idea poured into her voice, flinching as she said it. “For the good of the realm you must father more children, and I…I cannot carry another child.” As if to compound her statement, she shifted on her cushions, and a sharp gasp had Rhaegar looking anxiously at her; pain flitted across her face, her cheeks going pale, and she settled back in her chair slowly, breathing out through her mouth, eyes half-closed. “All things must end, love… Tywin would offer his daughter and his support.”

“Tywin has too much strength already,” Rhaegar said grimly, shaking his head. “And I mistrust the girl.”

“Why so?” Elia asked gently.

“There were other ways to spite and insult Lord Tywin,” Rhaegar said thoughtfully, watching his father, who sat festering, blind to the celebrations, not touching the food or drink set before him. “The empty Kingsguard position was not intended for Ser Jaime…Lord Varys mentioned something about Cersei Lannister and her twin-brother, something…worrying. Only a Targaryen would not find it distasteful…”

“Isn’t all news Varys brings distasteful?” Elia asked, with a clipped, almost disdainful tone. She frowned, and glanced at Rhaegar, then across the hall, her lips parting with realisation, as they landed on handsome young Jaime Lannister with his golden hair and irreverent emerald eyes. “You surely don’t mean -?”

“Varys says it was Cersei who approached my father with the idea to naming Jaime Lannister… There were rumours Tywin intended him for Lysa Tully.”

“Take the white cloak of the brothers…take no wife,” Elia murmured, watching Jaime Lannister dancing. “And yet Tywin took Cersei from the capital when your father named Jaime to the Kingsguard.”

“Not quite what Cersei expected,” Rhaegar said, with a twist to his mouth, a glint in his eyes.

“And how would she have been certain she would remain in the capital?” Elia asked, but even as she did, her eyes narrowed. “Ah…Aegon.”

“The entire court awaited news you would survive his birth,” Rhaegar said, an angry undercurrent to his tone that had Elia resting her elegant hand on his arm. “I imagine Tywin would have been the first to offer condolences and a choice bride.”

“He is far more subtle than that,” Elia murmured. “An alliance, with the promise of you un-naming his heir to the Kingsguard, the position of Hand returned to him under your regency… Tywin will always bide his time… He knows what is happening at court, Pycelle will see to that. Tywin will be waiting to see what _you_ do, Rhaegar.”

“I know what I have to do… I should have done it years ago: My Uncle Maester tells me I must kill the boy…’kill the boy Rhaegar, and let the man be born, the man who would be King’,” Rhaegar said miserably. “The man who would depose his own father, no matter how much he loves him…for the good of his people.” Rhaegar watched the Mad King with a mixture of dread and sorrow - in that moment, he was a son heartbroken by the loss of the father he remembered, the mind of the man he had loved fracturing irreparably before his eyes. He was old enough to have witnessed his father’s deterioration - Larra had worked it out during her lessons; Rhaegar had been eighteen years old during the Defiance of Duskendale. The question of how history may have unfolded had not Ser Barristan the Bold single-handedly rescued the King was one that had consumed hours of her and her brothers’ study with Maester Luwin.

“How shall you go about it? King’s Landing is a nest of vipers - and coming from a Martell you know this is not an exaggeration,” Elia murmured, and Rhaegar’s lips quirked with subtle amusement. “Where can you ensure the support you desperately need, to ensure the transition goes smoothly?”

“I don’t know…” Rhaegar looked suddenly exhausted, and he rubbed his brilliant indigo eyes, his expression pained. “This tourney should have provided the perfect opportunity to find out.”

“Perhaps it still shall,” Elia mused, thoughtfully watching the dancers, and a skimpily-clad woman from Volantis tumbling past, amusing several young lords. Elia sighed. “The scandal of you setting me aside to remarry - the mad scurry of all the lords of Westeros rushing to provide your new bride - would give ample concealment of your true intention to solidify alliance to imprison your father and enforce a regency.”

Rhaegar gulped visibly, his indigo eyes widening, and he slowly set his wine-glass down. “ _Imprison_?”

Elia’s face was fierce for a moment, her voice losing its sultriness in favour of a sternness that Larra remembered in the Northern voices of her childhood. “If you do not confine him soon, someone will take opportunity to kill him in spite of all his precautions. You know this. You know there are those at court who are willing to die for you by killing him. You _know_ you do not want an innocent person condemned to death for regicide when you can prevent things escalating further.”

“I know it. I dread it,” Rhaegar admitted, his shoulders drooping with grief. He shook his head, silky golden-silver hair past his shoulders glinting in the candlelight. “You have more faith in my abilities than I do.”

“There’s not a person in the world who could do this…except you. I believe that with every fibre of my _being_.” Rhaegar leaned in, and tenderly kissed his wife’s lips; he stroked her cheek with his thumb, and sighed, resting his brow against hers, eyes closed, relaxed for the briefest moment with her. “You were gone all day; your father was looking for you. Arthur tells me you wandered the godswood, searching for the Knight of the Laughing Tree. Did you find him?”

“I found the steely strength and honour of a true knight, indeed,” Rhaegar said, settling back in his chair, and betraying himself by seeking out Lyanna Stark among the dancers, an amused glint in his eyes that transformed his entire face, making his compelling features warm, entrancing. “But the Knight of the Laughing Tree was a mirage…”

“Much like this tourney,” Elia murmured, glancing around the vibrant hall with its exotic Volanteen dancers and tumblers, its flowers and fools. Her eyes rested on Lyanna Stark, now dancing with Ser Jaime Lannister, youngest-ever initiate of the Kingsguard, a gilded lion in his prime - and no longer any competition to the young lords gathered at Harrenhall set upon sealing contracts for marriage with the ladies present. Lyanna smiled beautifully as she danced with Ser Jaime, but - and Larra knew it from personal experience - the thrill of Ser Jaime’s outward beauty was dimmed by his arrogance. Lyanna’s smile was wild and bright, her cheeks pink from wine and dancing, and she laughed breathlessly at something, before leaping and twirling to the music, away from Ser Jaime to her new partner. “She has a fierce beauty, doesn’t she? I do not recognise her face from court.”

“Northerners stay in the North,” Rhaegar said, almost miserably, a yearning look in his eyes as he followed Lyanna twirling around the hall. “That is Lyanna, Lord Rickard Stark’s only daughter.”

Elia blinked, and glanced back at Lyanna, now dancing with a young lord from the Neck who was not a natural dancer - Larra recognised the sigil upon his breast, and for a moment, she was startled - it was _Jojen_. But it couldn’t be… She flicked her gaze at Brandon, who was watching young Howland Reed with a sorrowful, wistful grimace that made Larra think…perhaps he was still in there, her Bran… Realisation flickered in Elia’s dark eyes, and Larra thought of the reputation of Elia’s eldest brother, the cunning Prince Doran. “The Starks honour the Old Gods.”

“They do,” said Rhaegar, giving his wife a sidelong look; they could not keep secrets from each other, Larra realised.

“I have never seen you _mesmerised_ by a woman before…” Elia said thoughtfully, watching Lyanna curiously. “What did you speak to Lyanna Stark about all day in the godswood?”

“Knighthood.” There was an ironic little tilt to the corners of Rhaegar’s lips as he smiled. His eyes glittered with enthusiasm.

“Perhaps the Lady Lyanna desires to be knighted by royalty,” Elia said, hiding a smirk, trailing a fingertip along her husband’s arm. He quirked one eyebrow - a talent he had bequeathed to his twin children Jon and Larra - and glanced at Elia.

“The Northerners pay no mind to knighthood, and even less to southern royalty,” he said, almost gloomily. Elia’s lips twitched.

“And yet you cannot look away. She _is_ intoxicating,” Elia admitted without envy, watching Lyanna, now dancing with Ser Arthur Dayne - she had a breathless awe in her face that Larra would have recognised in a polished glass; Larra had always been half in love with the Sword of the Morning. Elia’s dark eyes twinkled with flirtatious amusement as she turned to Rhaegar: “She has such wonderful hips…and those breasts…how _succulent_.” The way she said _succulent_ , as if savouring the word with her tongue, lingering and erotic, made Larra shiver from her nipples to her knees, warming everything between. She had always heard of Elia’s frail health and assumed by nature she was also reclining and gentle: But there was the Dornish flair in her after all, a seductive indolence and glimmer of danger - the danger of an educated woman who knew her husband. “I imagine a direwolf would birth you a formidable litter.”

“And what about you? Shall I become Maegor to secure more heirs?” Rhaegar asked, and Larra thought he was angry - almost ashamed, absolutely offended by the comparison, the idea that Elia would propose it to him. “Shall we share Dragonstone, the three of us, and raise our brood of children together?”

“The Faith will not accept it, you know this, though it would be to everyone’s benefit to allow it…” Elia sighed, shaking her head. A whisper of spicy perfume teased Larra’s nose, a direct contrast to the crisp white floral scents she remembered wearing as a girl. It was an exotic and inimitable fragrance that had died with Elia, never to be recaptured.

“I remember your stance on polygamy,” Rhaegar said fondly, his lips almost smiling.

“More damage has been done through your family’s incest than through their polygamy. Maegor was one man: Targaryen intermarriage created a dozen more of his ilk,” Elia said, with a sharpness that surprised Larra, her dark eyes lingering on the King for a heartbeat. Aerys II Targaryen was now named beside Maegor the Cruel and Aegon the Unworthy in terms of his insanity, his cruelty, and his ineptitude as a monarch.

“And what happens to you?” Rhaegar challenged her, turning to his wife after refilling her cordial glass. “What shall I tell your brothers when I cast you back to the Water Gardens, still healing from delivering the last child I gave you?”

“You needn’t tell them anything. I shall,” Elia said benignly, and she smiled beautifully and sighed, closing her eyes. She rested against the high-backed chair. “To be among my family again… It is all I want. To see my children play among the orange-trees with their cousins…”

“Gods. Rhaenys shall wield a _glaive_ before she is five. I do wonder if Arthur would flee from her,” Rhaegar said drily, and Elia’s lips quirked into a beautiful smile, though her eyes were closed, resting, perhaps reminiscing, her elegant hands folded over her navel as if remembering her recent pregnancies, and perhaps yearning for the next child she could never have. Rhaegar watched her sorrowfully; he reached over and squeezed her delicate hands with one of his own huge ones, and Elia’s dark eyes opened to see Rhaegar leaning in for a delicate kiss that became consuming.

Their relationship was complex, as all marriages seemed to be.

“I _adore_ you. You do know that,” he said softly against her lips, Elia breathless, tugging on the sleeve of his tunic, and she nodded her head subtly, her eyes on his as he kissed her again, lazily. Larra wanted to look away, her cheeks warm, a surge of loneliness filling her with sadness.

“You _will_ find a way, Rhaegar,” Elia sighed against his lips, dusting his jaw with kisses. She stroked his cheek with her thumb, a delicate ring with a citrine set into a gold sunburst glinting on her finger. “If there is no precedent, you shall set it. A modern way to manage royal marriage.”

“A modern way?” Rhaegar chuckled, though the warmth of it did not quite reach his eyes. “Preferable to beheadings and war.”

“A modern way that protects our children’s place in the line of succession,” Elia said carefully, a flair of pride and determination tilting her chin up, “and ensures another takes my place to help you fulfil your duties to the crown…just in case… You married me out of duty. This time, you can marry for love. Marry a woman of your choosing, and be _happy_ , Rhaegar. No matter what happens, choose wisely, and let yourself love her - allow yourself to be loved _by_ her. You must let someone past those walls you have built so assiduously.”

He kissed her once more, deep and lingering, and again Larra was reminded of the complexities of marriage, having observed the quiet companionship of Robert and Cersei. She remembered Ned’s marriage to Catelyn, strong and enduring - and tainted by Ned’s love for Larra’s mother; Catelyn loved Ned and despised his children out of jealousy of their mother.

Rhaegar may not have been _in love_ with Elia, but it was very clear he did love her, respected her wisdom and shared companionship with her. They adored their children. They enjoyed each other. If not for the fact Rhaegar was not in love with Elia, and not truly happy, it would have been ideal.

Larra thought Rhaegar was blessed: And taking Elia _utterly_ for granted.

Who was truly _happy_? And how long did that joy last?

What was ecstasy - a brief moment of brilliant, shocking delight, over too soon - compared to constant, steady friendship, companionship, respect?

How rare was it to find _both_ in one’s partner in life?

Larra had a deep well of joy to draw from, from her childhood - in spite of Lady Catelyn’s best efforts - and her memories were all that had sustained her the last few years, bittersweet as they were.

But Rhaegar’s conversation with Elia added another layer to the mystery of why the Last Dragon, the famed poet-warrior who sang to orphans and tradesmen in the streets, a champion in the lists, respected and admired by the Seven Kingdoms in spite of the Rebellion, had abandoned his wife to pursue a wild Northern girl, and torn the kingdoms apart with civil war - something Larra knew implicitly, from this conversation alone, that Rhaegar was trying actively to avoid.

And she realised why he had not simply seized control, confining his father and imposing a regency: Rhaegar did _care_ what others thought of him. Asking Elia how he could possibly explain his actions to her brothers when he dishonoured her by ending their marriage… Imprisoning his father to seize control: It _mattered_ to him how his reign began. He had married Elia, at his father’s command: He was a dutiful son, and an honour-bound, dutiful prince who worried about the realm. And it was for the realm he held back from taking action, lest it spark widespread conflict beyond his control to maintain…

He had made a colossal error in keeping things secret, in an attempt to prevent a civil war…

Ser Arthur approached, bowing formally to the Princess with a glint in his eye and a smile she returned fondly; he addressed Rhaegar, in a soft, rich voice like velvet and smoke. Subtle and commanding, like the Sword of the Morning himself. “They want a song, Rhaegar.”

“Of course they do,” Elia chuckled, shaking her head and smiling adoringly at her husband, laughing fondly as Rhaegar made a show of groaning, though his eyes were smiling. “Keep them sweet.”

The dancers had stopped, the music gentling; people were murmuring, laughing, turning to the royal couple. It could not be plainer that they were here for Prince Rhaegar: The King’s presence was an unwanted anomaly, and he was largely ignored - dangerous, considering the King’s malleable moods, but in that moment, Larra doubted the King was lucid at all. A gentle, expectant hush fell over the hall, and Rhaegar chuckled to himself as he climbed out of his seat. Everyone rose - he was the Crown Prince, after all, and etiquette demanded it - he glanced around, sipping from his glass and waving his hand to coax everyone to sit.

Rhaegar, their Crown Prince, stood for them, _entertaining_ them at their request. And he looked happy to do so; he gestured at the orchestra gathered in the gallery, and the crowd sighed as he started to sing.

Larra’s eyes burned, her throat closing painfully around a hot lump.

Everyone said Rhaegar had preferred singing to killing: He was excellent at both, but enjoyed only one. He was not Robert Baratheon, honed for war, and left to rust when idle. Rhaegar was a poet, a singer. And his _voice_ …

They said he liked to sing. They said women wept at the sound of his voice. Until Larra heard it, she had no idea, truly, how gifted Rhaegar was. His voice was deep, rich and smooth, and he had been trained, she could tell; he projected his voice above the musical instruments, so that every last child and servant in the hall could hear him, as if he stood beside them, singing only to them.

He sang in High Valyrian, but it did not matter: The music, Rhaegar’s voice, the composition of the piece of music…

Larra knew this song.

She had heard it in her dreams. One day, she had started humming it; dreams had gifted her the words, and she had practiced singing it every day for weeks.

She remembered the look of horror on her father’s bloodless face when she had stood on a table in the Great Hall at Winterfell, singing to the King and his court… This song, Rhaegar’s song. He had a deep voice, what Maester Luwin would have called, in the Valyrian tongue, a _tenor_ vocal range. Larra…she was somewhere between a _mezzo_ and a _soprano_ \- and not nearly as well-trained as Rhaegar.

She had never, in all her life, heard anyone sing the way he did. The music, the composition, his voice…

Tears ran down her cheeks, utterly heartbroken.

Besides painting, music was one of her greatest joys: She had always loved to sing, to experiment with the few musical instruments that made their way to Winterfell. There were few at Winterfell to teach her the technique Rhaegar had mastered.

She was not the only one weeping. Old men gazed breathlessly at Rhaegar, shakily catching their breath as the music swelled and abruptly ended in perfect synchronisation with Rhaegar’s voice: Girls wiped their eyes on the sleeves of their gowns, and lords blinked, stupefied. Elia Martell gazed at Rhaegar as every man wanted to be gazed upon by his wife: Utterly, irrevocably in love with him.

Rhaegar’s eyes sought Lyanna in the crowd: His smile was startled and amused and he laughed softly, as he watched Lyanna upturn a glass of wine on her brother’s head, her face shining with tears. Beside her, young Benjen was clapping enthusiastically, smiling with pure childish delight at the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince bowed to his audience. The song, the bow - simple acts of humility that ceded power to his lords and ladies, and earned their respect.

 _Showmanship_ , Larra wanted to call it. Rhaegar knew who his people were, and what they wanted, and chose his moments to give it to them - in ceding power by singing at their request, Rhaegar had only solidified his position with his people.

 _Very clever_.

“He was clever,” she said sadly. She shook her head, and glanced at Brandon, asking miserably, “Why was it always the cleverest of men who make such staggering blunders?”

Brandon smiled sadly, and the hot, perfumed hall melted away. They were in a new place.

It was mid-afternoon, perhaps, in summer - or the South. The stone floor of the chamber was pale gold and the walls were painted beautifully, a sweeping frieze of songbirds - and elegant, stylised dragons that had a sinuous, eerie, spine-tingling beauty. The light was gentle as it filtered through sheer curtains over the balcony, glinting in the froths of pale curls spilling over a woman’s slim shoulders to her waist, soft, warm-toned golden hair with delicate silver lights glinting whenever a shaft of sunlight shone through the sheer curtains, sighing in the breeze that smelled of sunshine, brine and heavily-perfumed flowers.

The woman sat at a chaise, exquisitely elegant, and in spite of a dramatic difference in their colouring, Larra was reminded vividly of Cersei: The cut of her gown had the same asymmetric draping, delicate satin ribbon ties to bind the wrapped layers of shimmering iridescent silk so thin Larra was sure she could read raven-scrolls through it, in soft tones of pale lavenders, lilacs and silver. The billowing sleeves were lined with shimmering opalescent organza embroidered with silver and glinting beads. The woman’s waist was cinched with a sash of citrine brocade, and over this she wore a belt of gilt-embossed silver links etched exquisitely with stylised dragons. Around her wrists, she wore two elegant gold cuffs fashioned like sinuous, winged dragons - the three-headed dragon of the Targaryen sigil. There were hints of old bruises and scratches on her pale skin, revealed by her billowing sleeves as if she had long forgotten to try to hide them: A shawl of finest Qartheen lace, delicate as spider-silk, was draped over her elbows, again reminding Larra of Cersei Lannister. There was the subtlest trim of lilac velvet at the neckline, which came to a high point, revealing nothing but the base of a slender white throat, and the hints of old bruises and even a bite mark, slowly healing. Larra stared at it for a second. She knew, of course, who this woman was.

Set upon her grandmother’s rampant curls was a delicate circlet of silver and gold, not elaborate or heavily jewelled, just pretty, understated. Simple and elegant.

Queen Rhaella. She was breathtakingly beautiful. And the resemblance to Daenerys Targaryen was extraordinary. They were not identical, of course; but Daenerys had the same shape of eyes, and though this woman’s mouth was smaller, her lips were pretty, budding like a rose - Larra’s lips. There was something quiet and dignified about her: This was a woman who did not need to reveal an inch of flesh to have a crowd in thrall to her. Her face was oval-shaped and solemn, and her daughter had inherited her cheekbones, and the shape of her eyebrows; the Queen’s were pale gold, hovering anxiously over delicate lilac eyes.

“Now, you remember the most important thing?” she asked the little boy who stood before her, as she carefully knotted the high, scale-embroidered collar of his tunic with corded ties tipped with silver points like dragon-teeth. He fidgeted in the heat, uncomfortable in a fine, sleeveless overcoat, heavily embroidered with the Targaryen sigil, with sharp peaks at the shoulders that recalled Drogon’s spines, over a tailored leather tunic with split, peaked cuffs. He had the Targaryen silver-gold hair and pale-lilac eyes identical to his mother’s in colouring, though not in shape.

“Mmm…?” the little boy said, glancing away from a large gilded cage that spread across almost an entire wall, where brightly-coloured songbirds hopped and chirped merrily in spite of their captivity.

“You must remember, Viserys, not to _wake the dragon_ ,” said Queen Rhaella, with a kind urgency that was terrible to hear, her elegant hands gentle on his slim shoulders, veiled terror mingled with gentleness in her expression, a mother’s love pouring from beautiful eyes that seemed shuttered.

“I remember, Mother!” he chirped happily. “Shall Father give me sweets, do you think?”

“Only if you are _very_ good,” Queen Rhaella assured him warmly, smoothing his shimmering hair, and he grinned. Tiny white teeth glinted in the sunlight.

“Surely he shall! I know _all_ the names of the dragons now!” he said proudly, puffing out his little chest.

“Your father should like to hear them,” Queen Rhaella said softly, her expression as she gazed down at her youngest surviving son. He did not notice the bruises on his mother’s skin, or the bite-mark healing at the neckline of her gown, or the way the warmth and gentleness disappeared from her face in an instant as two septas and a lady-in-waiting appeared, replaced with something stark and terrified and then - nothing. Only her face, expressionless; betraying nothing, not even her own suffering.

Prince Viserys had not noticed the scars of her mother’s abuse; perhaps he saw them so often that they were not remarkable.

But Rhaegar, who slipped into the chamber after the little prince disappeared, noticed immediately. His searing indigo eyes went straight to his mother’s throat, the bruised bite-mark flirting with the neckline of her gown, winking from behind her shimmering curls - thick, heavy, riotous curls that ringleted and coiled, waved and danced wildly with every movement, as pale as her granddaughter’s were dark: Larra had inherited Queen Rhaella’s curls.

In contrast to the little prince who had skipped away with his septas, perfectly groomed, and the memory of Rhaegar at Harrenhall, dressed for a feast, Rhaegar appeared in dusty breeches and boots, the asymmetric collar of his black wool tunic open almost rakishly, his broad chest sheened with sweat, and a sword strapped to his back.

His had a dangerous glint in his eyes as they rested on that bruised skin, for only a heartbeat; then Queen Rhaella seemed to return to herself, saw her son, and Larra could never have accused him of a temper, his face betraying no anger. Mother and son had mastered the same technique of erasing all evidence of their private thoughts from their features. Larra wondered how long it had taken them, and what horrors they had endured to perfect it.

The Queen rose from the chaise in an elegant move Larra would never be able to mimic. One moment she was reclined, the next she was sweeping toward Rhaegar with her arms outstretched, a beauteous smile lighting up her entire face.

“ _Rhaegar_ …!” she sighed warmly. Rhaegar embraced his mother, tucking her slim body into his in an embrace that, to Larra, looked incredibly protective - as if he was offering her his physical strength, literally exposing his back to cover her body with his protection. He inhaled deeply of the perfume in her hair, a wonderful scent of jasmine, pear, honeysuckle and decadent Qartheen camellia that whispered around Larra’s nose and flirted sweetly, never overpowering but opulent. Understated, elegant and beautiful, like the Queen herself.

Larra inhaled the perfume deeply, tantalised by the scent. Perhaps a hint of Rhaegar’s memory lingered; to Larra, it smelled of _home_ , of warmth and deep love, contentment - that was what Rhaegar experienced whenever he smelled his mother’s perfume…

“Was that Viserys I saw?” Rhaegar asked, as he released his mother.

“He has been summoned to the Throne Room,” Queen Rhaella said placidly, and Rhaegar gave her a sharp look. It may have been months since Harrenhall; there were stern lines in Rhaegar’s face that hadn’t been there when he was relaxed beside Elia, singing to his court. Something significant - or maybe several significant things - had happened since Harrenhall, something that kept Rhaegar at court, rather than his home on Dragonstone with Princess Elia and their children.

“You won’t join him at court?” he asked gently. Queen Rhaella and her husband the King had lived separate lives within the Red Keep, it was well-known.

“Let us have tea together,” Queen Rhaella said, smiling beautifully, and she rang a tiny silver bell that set the songbirds into a chorus. She watched them thoughtfully, approaching a little inlaid table, and lifted the lid of an enamel box; she dipped manicured fingertips into the box, taking a generous pinch of birdseed, and scattered it into the cage. The jewel-bright birds chirped and sang and put on a display for her. Rhaella watched the birds, and Rhaegar watched her; he seemed to sigh to himself, shaking his head, and turned to carry a carved chair toward his mother’s chaise. She cast him a disapproving look, gazing pointedly at one of the comfortable, upholstered seats.

“I’m covered in sweat and dust, Mother.”

“I wonder you did not bathe before you presented yourself to your Mama.”

“I wanted to see you,” Rhaegar said simply, as a lady-in-waiting appeared bearing a silver tea-tray, laden with elegant tulip-shaped tea-glasses and an etched silver pot steaming subtly over a tiny flame. Clustered around the teapot and glasses were tiny silver dishes of roasted almonds tossed in oil and salt, small sweet figs, tiny oranges, sticky, stuffed dates the size of Larra’s little-finger, tiny thousand-layer pastries oozing with honey and crushed pistachios, and the sweets Larra had seen only once, brought to Winterfell by the royal court during King Robert’s visit, _morsels of ecstasy_. A delicacy of Old Valyria, brought to Westeros by the Targaryens centuries before the Conquest. Exquisite pink pillows of rosewater and orange-blossom water flavoured gel encased crushed pistachios and chopped dates, each dusted in confectioner’s sugar.

Sansa had graciously allowed Larra to share one of the sweets Princess Myrcella had gifted her in a dainty silver box. Larra had never been bothered by sweets, her tastes leaning heavily toward savoury dishes…but those _morsels_ …

Larra’s mouth watered even now for the unusual flavours, sumptuous, foreign and decadent and deceptively simple: The aromatic rosewater, the delicate tang of lemon-juice, the perfect sweetness and the savoury nuts, the rich colouring from the pomegranate juice, the unusual chewiness, they all reminded Larra of that quiet afternoon in Sansa’s chamber as summer snows had drifted around Winterfell, and they sat on the heavy, embroidered eiderdown on Sansa’s bed, a tiny silver box between them, sharing the contraband sweeties Sansa had hidden from her mother.

She had shared the secret _with Larra_. It was the one true kindness Larra remembered from Sansa in years, and perhaps it was that rare moment with Sansa, more than the _morsels_ themselves, that made them so wonderful in her memory. She remembered Sansa prattling on about Princess Myrcella telling her that the ladies at court all ate _morsels_ _of ecstasy_ with bitter tea in the afternoons, to tide them over until their evening meal, playing a lazy game of cyvasse, or listening to the high harp, or sewing and gossiping. In her chambers at Winterfell, the Queen had invited Sansa to join her and Myrcella for bitter tea and decadent _morsels_ : They heard of nothing else until Bran’s fall, the first true _hurt_ their family had experienced since Lyanna’s abduction all those years ago.

Larra had always wondered why Cersei, who had seemed to take no genuine delight in food or in company, would sit to tea offering _morsels of ecstasy_. Now she understood: Cersei, who had spent time at court when she was a girl while her father served as Hand to Aerys II Targaryen, had seen Queen Rhaella luxuriate in the tradition. Cersei associated tea and _morsels of ecstasy_ with the role of Queen: So she continued the custom, though she had not cultivated the tradition or had any personal connection to the treats handed out. It was different for Queen Rhaella: the _morsels_ were her inheritance, the last few scraps of her family’s culture that had survived the Doom, one of the few ways she could retain Valyrian traditions in a strange land. Larra wondered how much of Valyrian culture the Targaryens had taught each other and carried on throughout the generations with quaint customs like this, and how many of them had inadvertently leaked throughout Westeros due to their influence the last few centuries.

It was a strange thing for her to focus on, when Rhaegar Targaryen stood not three feet from her, very much alive… But she did. She couldn’t help it. Were Brandon to show her their father again - the father she remembered, not the boy he had once been - she would have been a wreck, sobbing in a heap on the floor, most likely - but it was like Cersei with the _morsels of ecstasy_ : Larra had no personal connection to Rhaegar. He was a man, like any other - a brilliant, foolish man, it turned out - but not her _father_. He may have wedded and bedded Lyanna Stark to help create her and Jon, but the man who was her _father_ had raised her, ensured her education, protected her, had lost his head in this very city…

She could not deny that it was not exhilarating to look at Rhaegar Targaryen, the man who had fathered them, now that she knew the truth about her mother - and even Rhaella, her grandmother through Rhaegar. Larra had inherited her grandmother’s lips and curls, through him, and Jon his nose; Rhaegar had given Larra her eyes, and her height, she was sure, and they had both inherited his hands - Jon’s, absolutely, huge palms, long, slender fingers, and Larra’s, slightly smaller, more elegant, with fingers just as long and slender. They even had the same shape nails, and looking even more closely at him, Larra was certain she had inherited the same pattern of tiny beauty-spots on her chest as Rhaegar had on his, and those dusted on his brawny forearms, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

Larra looked at Rhaegar, and realised they even had the same shape teeth - good and strong, white and straight. They had his smile - rare, and more startlingly beautiful because of it.

People had always said their mother had left little of herself in Jon and Larra: That they favoured their father, Ned, in looks. The truth of it was, they took after Lyanna in her colouring: But they _did_ share some resemblance to Rhaegar Targaryen, in the details. Larra had always paid close attention to the details: in her lessons, in her _cyvasse_ campaign strategies, in her painting; and in people’s requests, their complaints.

Mother and son sat to tea, the Queen passing the honour of pouring the tea over to her son - the women prepared, the men poured. That was the custom in Old Valyria: And men served guests first, always, ladies and children first - ensuring they were provided for.

That was a quaint custom Larra felt more of Westeros should have long ago adopted.

Rhaegar tried, and Larra could see his frustration - remembered Jon, in the moments she watched Rhaegar trying to coax his mother into speaking of politics, of the fraught nature of court, of…of her husband the King whose paranoia was becoming legendary, only outmatched by his brutality.

“Word is spreading through the city,” Rhaegar murmured, watching his mother carefully, and Larra could see Rhaegar tasting his words before he used them. “They know Father is excited by fire.”

Queen Rhaella could not hide her flinch: If it had been anyone else, Larra thought she might have been able to - though no-one else would have dared bring up the topic. She could not hide from her firstborn, though, her adult son, who was the same age as Larra now was, she realised, as they spoke, though he seemed older than his years due to his size, and his melancholy nature…she wondered what horrors he had witnessed in these painted halls. Yes, people knew Aerys had become sexually excited by the executions-by-fire he commanded in the latter part of his reign… It was still whispered - out of respect for Rhaella - that he had been sexually violent to the Queen after he fed men to the fire.

Daenerys Targaryen, they said, had been conceived by force after Aerys fed his Hand, Qarlton Chelsted, to the flames, during the Rebellion: Aerys had viciously raped Queen Rhaella, resulting in her last pregnancy.

Larra thought of Daenerys Targaryen in the temple of the _dosh khaleen_ , and wondered if she had fucked her paramour that night - Larra had seen him, earthy and handsome, cocky and, relatively speaking, good-natured, standing beside an older man wearing the bear sigil of House Mormont, and a white-haired man even Larra knew as Ser Barristan the Bold.

She wondered if Daenerys Targaryen felt a thrill every time she executed a man.

Larra wondered if Daenerys would be as ready to burn men alive if she knew she would never have been born had her father not lusted for death by fire - had he not brutalised her mother every time he sentenced a man to die…

Rhaella stood to scatter a pinch of birdseed to her songbirds in their gilded cage, her face wiped of all emotion. But her fingers trembled, and Rhaegar noticed. He stood, and Larra observed how careful he was, in how he approached his mother, how he made himself seem smaller, less threatening, did not crowd her, approached her as if she was a wounded, skittish animal that might die of fright rather than bite to protect itself.

Rhaegar reached out, and tenderly moved aside the collar of his mother’s modest, beautiful gown to reveal her neck, bruised and scratched… Inches below her collar-bone, a fuchsia-purple bruise flourished angrily, another bite-mark glared furiously red and ragged against her pale skin, the swell of her white breast above her stays and tissue-thin silk smallclothes. The dangerous glint in Rhaegar’s eyes seemed to catch alight, even as the light flickered and died in Rhaella’s eyes, absence of any emotion replacing the warmth of her smile, the gentle strength of her love.

It struck Larra how large Rhaegar was: He was a good two heads taller than his slender mother - she was taller than her daughter, Larra knew, closer to Larra’s own height - and even in his dark, sleekly-tailored sparring clothing, deceptively slender, Rhaegar was well-built. Beside him, the Queen, who had not struck Larra at all as being frail, or as anything but regal and composed, looked particularly delicate, and _young_ … She tried to remember her lessons, thought Queen Rhaella had not yet seen her fortieth birthday when she died on Dragonstone… She had been married after her very first blood, it was commonly known, with Rhaegar born during the Tragedy of Summerhall soon after, born as his family died in flames and agony as Aegon the Unlikely strove to bring dragons into the world again and bring the Westerosi lords to heel… Larra was reminded _again_ of the temple of the _dosh khaleen_ …

The Queen seemed to ignore the look on Rhaegar’s face; she did not shy away from his hand, but she did not acknowledge it either. “How long have you known?”

“Long enough I am ashamed not to have acted before,” Rhaegar said quietly, and something flickered in his mother’s eyes. He righted the neckline of her gown, and Larra saw him clench his hands into fists as he lowered them.

“The court is like a cache of wildfire,” Queen Rhaella said, her voice gentle but unyielding. Larra had heard people describe Rhaegar as having ‘iron tones’ in his voice - she imagined this woman was where Rhaegar got his strength from, not his broken-minded father. “One careless spark and we shall face another Dance of Dragons. Darling boy, the Seven Kingdoms cannot be drawn into our family’s tragedies.”

“We cannot prevent a civil war, Mother. Soon Father will execute the wrong man,” Rhaegar warned quietly. “All we can do is minimise the damage.”

“We need _Tywin_ ,” Rhaella said, almost a moan, as she wrung her elegant hands. “I am surprised he does not return to King’s Landing to take young Ser Jaime’s place as your father’s intended hostage to ensure Lannister loyalty.”

“Ser Jaime is not his father, and Tywin knows it,” Rhaegar said quietly. “And Lord Tywin knows Father would as soon burn him alive as invite him to be his Hand again. What news from the Rock?”

“I receive no word of answer to the ravens I have despatched,” Rhaella said anxiously.

“You are assuming Varys has not diverted them to a brazier.”

“I take them to the ravenry myself,” Queen Rhaella said gently, a flicker of apprehension crossing her face. “Whatever happens, we cannot rely on Tywin’s loyalty. Not with Ser Jaime as your father’s hostage, and such bad blood between them.”

“And with sixty-thousand men at his command if he chooses to raise his banners…?” Rhaegar murmured, catching his mother’s eye. He shook his head. “It will not be Tywin who ignites the wildfire, Mother. He’s far too prudent for that. He’ll wait, and watch…he’ll do what he must to ensure the boy’s safety, but no more… Father has turned a stalwart ally and fierce friend into a man utterly indifferent to his fate.” His eyes lingered on his mother’s bruises. “All those who once loved and admired him see him for what he has always been.”

“He hasn’t always…”

“Been cruel? You best of all know that he has,” Rhaegar said gently. Rhaella turned her lilac eyes on her son, frowning subtly. “You cannot hide it from me as you do Viserys… Yet the more I see, the more you seem to blind yourself to… Now all of Westeros shall know just how broken Father’s mind is.”

A faint tinge of colour touched Rhaella’s cheeks, but she stood tall, her shoulders back, chin level to the floor. Unchallenging, but not cowering either. Confident, but not arrogant. Larra was enthralled by her use of her body to communicate without words. “Should I bar my door and send him to a brothel? Bring whores to his bed for him to mutilate when they displease him? How many shall die so I may sleep painlessly?”

A muscle ticked in Rhaegar’s jaw - the same muscle that ticked in Jon’s whenever he was furious, and trying hard not to give in to his frustrations. “It pleases him to _hurt_ you.”

“I know what people think - I hear what they say… Lord Varys is very good about keeping me informed, just as he does your father, though he feeds us different morsels… People do not realise I have my own influence over the King,” Rhaella said softly, and that tick reappeared in Rhaegar’s jaw. “It is I who can gentle the worst of his obsessive distrust, after he has taken such pains throughout our marriage to ensure I alone can be trusted… But I would endure him every night, my darling boy, if it meant keeping you safe. And Elia, and Rhaenys, and Aegon, and Viserys.”

“It should be _me_ protecting _you_ ,” Rhaegar said firmly.

“No, my love…do not deny me a mother’s single purpose…to protect her children. How many generations lingered on Dragonstone before Aegon turned his eyes westward? I will wait…and I will witness a great ruler create an empire the world has never seen before,” Rhaella murmured, resting her palm against Rhaegar’s cheek, her lilac eyes over-brimming with pride and love.

Larra’s heart broke. She had lived her entire life wanting someone to look at her that way. Her heart broke, because this kind, dutiful and resilient lady had died, knowing all but two of her family-members had been butchered as sadistically as any of her husband’s victims had been. A boy with missing milk-teeth had been crowned King at Dragonstone; all Rhaella had to give her daughter was a trailing name she had carried with her to the Dothraki Sea and beyond…

A lady-in-waiting appeared; the Queen cast her a measuring look.

“A meeting of your charities? Or are we to have another ball?” Rhaegar asked gloomily. Queen Rhaella’s lips twitched toward a smile, her eyes glinting, but they didn’t quite make it; a shadow flickered across her eyes, and her smile died.

“Keep the court fed and entertained and they will endure any mistreatment,” she said softly.

“Slowly the unthinkable becomes tolerable,” Rhaegar murmured darkly. “And then acceptable. Then celebrated… Until it is not. Father’s madness will not long be tolerated, Mother.”

“Rhaegar,” Queen Rhaella warned. “These walls have eyes and ears.”

“The Spider can tell Father what he likes; the Gods know he already does, to suit his own purposes,” Rhaegar said, with a touch of impatience rather than disdain.

“Better to keep everyone sweet, my love,” Rhaella warned in an undertone, echoing what Elia had said at Harrenhall. She turned to leave with her lady-in-waiting.

“Would you forgive me, Mother?” Rhaegar asked, and Rhaella paused at the steps. She glanced over her shoulder, that look on her face again, breaking Larra’s heart.

“My first, dearest love… A mother can forgive her child anything.”

That was Rhaegar’s permission; and his pardon.

It dictated the destruction of a dynasty, though that was not the intent of Rhaegar or his mother.

The Queen left, her lady-in-waiting trailing behind her, and Rhaegar let out a pent-up breath, his eyes closed. When he opened them, he unfurled his fingers, and Larra felt suddenly light-headed, noticing the tiny bloody crescents standing out angrily on his calloused palms.

Her own palms seemed to burn, and she glanced down at them, her lips parting. She bore the same scars as her father; had the exact same habit to internalise her rage and prevent herself hurting anyone, or making anyone think less of her for her reaction.

A shadow appeared in the doorway, an unassumingly handsome man with cropped dark hair and violet eyes, clean-shaven, with solemn high cheekbones and a sense of gravitas that made him feel almost Northern to Larra. She knew he wasn’t. Her lips parted, a surge of unexpected delight almost making her smile.

She was uncertain how she felt about seeing Rhaegar Targaryen in the flesh, after what she had learned - perhaps especially because of that. As a girl she had been hyper-critical of Rhaegar’s conduct and apparent contradictions in character when he abducted Lyanna - to know he had acted honourably to Lyanna after all, yet had torn Westeros asunder in the act of marrying her…she had thought him selfish in her youth; now, the same age he had been when he and Lyanna eloped, Lyanna thought him foolish. She was uncertain of Rhaegar, and probably always would be; he was an enigma that belonged to the past.

But Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning?

She had always been half in love with him.

Father spoke so rarely but so highly of him… She now knew why: Ser Arthur had died defending Lyanna - defending _her_ , and Jon, the last of Rhaegar’s legacy. It wasn’t just that Ser Arthur was the best swordsman Ned had ever seen: Father had considered him a noble, honourable man. Rhaegar had taken control of royalist forces fighting in the North, and had left his best, fiercest friend, a legendary swordsman, to defend Lyanna.

Ser Arthur sighed heavily, his eyes on Rhaegar’s hands. He approached, took one of Rhaegar’s hands in his to examine his palms.

“That’s no good. You won’t be able to hold your sword if you continue to maim yourself,” he said, in his smoky, rich voice.

“Did you hear that?” Rhaegar asked glumly, and Ser Arthur nodded.

“I did,” he said simply. “I am with you, always.” Rhaegar lifted his head, his own indigo eyes seeking Ser Arthur’s violet ones.

“Thank you, brother,” Rhaegar said softly. Ser Arthur nodded, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and the memory melted away as they departed the Queen’s painted chamber…

Brandon showed her a great many memories after that. The Queen’s flight from King’s Landing on a crisp morning, the sky cold and blue above, the sea gentle, the city holding its breath as it prepared for siege. A heavily pregnant Rhaella, receiving a raven-scroll from Dorne, signed by Lord Dayne of Starfall Hall, announcing the death of Lyanna Stark, and the Sword of the Morning who had defended her - it was Rhaella’s grief that cemented Larra’s belief that Rhaegar’s mother had known all along what Rhaegar had been up to, that she had known Rhaegar had dissolved his marriage to Elia in favour of marrying Lyanna and gaining Northern support for a coup to impose a regency on his father’s reign… Rhaella, thin and anxious, had sobbed, her belly bulging as she collapsed beside the Painted Table, small wooden dragons clutched in her hands, Viserys, now seemingly a lot older due to the frown of apprehension on his little face, watching from the hearth, roaring with flame as a storm raged around the castle.

Brandon showed her Rhaella nursing her only surviving daughter; and the gentle, strong queen with hands clasped at her breast, in full regalia, dressed all in gold, in the Sept, summer sunlight shattered through crystals that picked up every hue of gold and silver in her hair and gave colour to the death-paled lips small Viserys kissed as a septa waited patiently for him to say goodbye to his Mama.

They watched two small golden-silver haired children in a modest manse in Braavos, with a great bear of a man roaring orders at servants, who stole all of his money and turned out his charges when he died. A tiny meek girl traipsed, weeping, from the house with the red door and her quaint bedchamber with a lemon tree outside the window.

Larra traversed the Free Cities with the last Targaryens, the Beggar King who grew angrier, more desperate, more hopeless, with every door shut on him, every promise proved false…protecting the innocence of his sister against servants and sly hosts, even as he bullied her in his frustration and anger at their circumstances, the one person in the world who was beneath him.

The meek girl turned into a pretty young woman, a pale and delicate wraith who trailed uncertainly beside him, treading on eggshells as she glanced out of the corner of her eyes to gauge her brother’s mood, always heeding the threat - _you don’t want to wake the dragon, do you_? - the same warning his mother had given Viserys so many years ago: Viserys never realised Rhaella had been warning him against his father’s madness, the insanity Viserys resolutely denied all his life. Rhaegar had been a clever man who saw everything; Viserys had been a child whose family was gone before he could realise the truth for himself. He had passed his ignorance and his anger to Daenerys Stormborn, who turned her gaze away and stopped listening every time her Westerosi advisers warned her against echoing her father’s choices, giving in to her first, worst instincts.

Larra journeyed from the tranquil gardens of Pentos to the endless Dothraki Sea, and found herself thirsty for Daenerys Targaryen’s horse-lord husband, considerate to his fragile bride as he coaxed and petted and adored her on their wedding-night, and mounted her beneath the stars when she whispered a breathless, _Yes_!

She saw the complexities and paradoxes of Daenerys Stormborn, a meek girl who survived the brutality of the Dothraki, growing in confidence, adopting their harsh culture as her own, embracing their brutality - and simultaneously repulsed and horrified by it.

Larra witnessed the birth of dragons, heard newborn dragons croon and sing in the sunrise as a great pyre hissed and cracked and belched black smoke, and the Mother of Dragons was born.

They journeyed to Qarth, and Larra wished she could explore it: She grew more concerned as Daenerys Stormborn threatened to reduce Qarth to ash if her weak _khalasaar_ was turned away - and did turn Astapor to ash, after reneging on her word to the Wise Masters. She sacked the city, and marched at the head of an army of Unsullied… Through trickery she claimed Yunkai, and her handsome lover Daario Naharis, wise through experience and the only one who did not dread Daenerys’ wrath to speak honestly to her.

She conquered Meereen. Gave proper burials to the child-slaves crucified as mile-markers to the greatest city in Slavers’ Bay - and then crucified hundreds of noblemen, even those who had nearly bankrupted their ancient families outbidding other, notoriously brutal nobles, to protect slaves they considered it their duty to protect, and provide for, within a corrupted institution only time and education could eradicate.

Larra smiled fondly, watching a drunken dwarf invigorate a broken economy, bringing peace to a city at war with itself, all while enjoying his sceptical Volantene whore, and trading barbs with the eunuch Varys, who watched the Dragon Queen shrewdly, and patiently, and disappointedly, as Daenerys continued to undermine her own rhetoric of _breaking the wheel_ … At the first opportunity to nurture true, lasting change in Meereen, with support and peace and men who knew how to rule to guide her, Daenerys had ordered her _khalasaar_ to board ships, Unsullied to leave their posts, and sail for Westeros - leaving a sell-sword company as her proxies in the Great Pyramid of Meereen, her lover with them.

Larra watched everything as it had occurred, attempting to do so without bias, but she was disappointed. Truthfully, she was distrustful, and wary of the Dragon Queen.

Daenerys Targaryen’s actions did not match her words.

Her actions spoke more than words.

The last memory was the most recent, Larra knew.

In a gloomy, high-ceilinged chamber, shards of brittle light glinted off eerie black rock shaped by spells and dragonfire, tall braziers burning as a diminutive court held its breath. At the far end of the chamber, a small woman with long silvery-gold hair sat straight-backed and arrogant on her ancestors’ first throne. This was Dragonstone, and a motley assortment of followers had gathered in the firelight to show their support of her.

Gone was the meek girl in finest Qartheen lace; gone the courageous young-woman in horse-hair vests and painted-silk trousers; gone the woman armoured in exquisite gowns, untouchable and out-of-touch; hints of the woman who had smiled as she burned the _khals_ and luxuriated in the thrill of wielding her dragons as a weapon against the armada sent by Yunkai and Astapor showed in the hard set to Daenerys Targaryen’s face as she waited for someone, her chin raised arrogantly - somewhere between Qarth and the Astapor, Daenerys Targaryen had lost the warmth and courage and fierce earnestness that had defined her as a _khaleesi_ \- perhaps it had happened in Qarth, sentencing a maidservant to die slowly and in agony, for loyalty - Brandon had shown Larra that the maidservant Daenerys Targaryen had locked in a great vault to starve to death had been found in Daenerys’ enemy’s bed, where Daenerys had sent her, and where she had been kept, prevented from hearing news of her mistress until the Mother of Dragons had locked her away. The Summer Islander had broken the girl’s neck in the dark, rather than let her suffer.

Daenerys had killed those loyal to her without blinking, without reflection on her own part in what had happened: She had betrayed her word to the Masters of Astapor: And abandoned Meereen to its fate only after failing at establishing the new world she had vowed she was determined to create.

There was a coldness to Daenerys now, a brittle sense of power that Larra disliked immediately. As Daenerys Stormborn had left Essos, the warmth of Essos had left her.

It struck her that Daenerys was fully-clothed for the very first time. She had adopted the black colour-palette of her Targaryen sigil: And her clothes, though still incredibly fine, were of sturdy, thicker materials more suited to winter. The sharp shoulders of her short, pleated jacket recalled her brother Viserys’ embroidered overcoats. And the Breaker of Chains wore a silvered chain of dragon vertebrae from one shoulder to her hip, with a three-headed dragon clasp. Her long hair glinted in the firelight as she waited, unmoving.

Around her were clustered people Larra had never met, but knew where they came from simply by their dress.

A sultry Dornishwoman draped artfully in layers of shimmering fabrics that still managed to hint at the lithe, shapely body beneath, her tanned midriff almost bare, her painted silk trousers and overskirts billowing, embroidery glittering in the firelight as she moved, a sash of vibrant silk protecting her from a wide belt heavily adorned with gold discs embedded with jewels. Her voluptuous breasts were highlighted by a bright, cropped jacket over a translucent silk split tunic that gave teasing glimpses of dark little nipples, flirting with her many pearl necklaces dripping sensuously to her navel, two veils - one heavy, embroidered and beaded brocade, held in place by a heavy chain-and-pearl headdress, the other shimmering, light as air, barely disguising her face and the eyes glinting beneath, smoked with kohl. She held hands with two young girls, similarly though more modestly dressed, in richly embroidered, beaded fabrics draped airily and irresistibly, the elder dressed in black velvet with a Martell-ochre silk veil draped artfully around her, clasped with a sunspear brooch at her breast, the younger dressed much like her mother in warmer, sultry colours, subtly shaking her wrist around which a bracelet of tiny silver bells was clasped.

As the mother spoke to her girls in undertones, she was watched by shrewd pale eyes set into the wizened face of an old woman. She was plump in her old age, but was on her feet, and richly-dressed in a black brocade jacket, intricate thorny, vine-like belt and billowing skirts - she looked attractive and very dignified, wearing a wimple and a crespine adorned with a subtle golden rose motif in metal and a diaphanous pleated veil. The black of her outfit mirrored the mourning-wear of the Dornishwoman, echoing the wintry tones of Daenerys Targaryen’s new wardrobe, and the shell-like black leather armour of her Unsullied soldiers lining the walls.

The only breath of fresh air, of gentleness and softness, delicacy, and colour, came from the veritable bouquet of beauties clustered around the Tyrell matriarch, young girls all under the age of thirteen, Larra would guess, except for the eldest, who stood beside the inimitable Queen of Thorns, with her shoulders back and her chin level to the inlaid floor, deceptively unassuming and exquisitely pretty. The young girls all wore versions of the same gown, cut cleanly and simply, with floaty skirts of organza over silk, a short jacket with a low, wrapped neckline meeting at a point, worn over a gauzy organza underdress knotted at the base of the throat with silk ribbon, almost imitating Lady Olenna’s wimple, softer and more delicate, prettier. The tracery on their short jackets and some of their shawls was of closed, tight rosebuds - not decadent open roses like Lady Olenna’s gold tracery on her black jacket. And, unlike Lady Olenna’s black clothing, the young girls were dressed in soft pale-blue and shimmering icy-greens that had soft dove-grey undertones, still subdued but fresh, clean and crisp like an unexpected frost on the moors.

The eldest girl, the most exquisite of them, with her gentle green eyes and soft golden-brown hair waving to her waist, wore a more adult version of the younger girls’ dresses, not quite Lady Olenna’s jacket and skirts ensemble. Her shimmering gown had full skirts and simple lines, without the excess of organza, cleaner and crisp, the low, pointed neckline and the sharp cuffs of the long sleeves trimmed with velvet and glinting with embroidered vines and tight rosebuds. She showed off her elegant hands, her slender throat, hinted at her pretty breasts with delicate folds of iridescent organza tucked at her neckline, folded almost to resemble the unfurling petals of a rose. A heavy, embroidered shawl covered in almost erotic roses was draped around her for more warmth, and Larra knew the chill was not so much from the weather as the atmosphere in the hall: Superbly uninviting.

It was a small court, jumbled and hastily-assembled, not quite certain of itself. The only ones confident in their place were the Unsullied, and the Dothraki blood-riders who wielded wicked _arakhs_ and whips, moving around the hall, restless, their long braids shining - and catching the young Tyrell girl’s interest, watching them curiously, the subtle chime of silver bells in their long braids adding to the music of the youngest Dornish girl as she huffed impatiently and shot a nasty look at Daenerys Targaryen, who sat unmoving, expectant, cold as ice.

Larra knew the Queen of Thorns by reputation alone: She assumed the Dornishwoman had some personal connection to House Martell.

And there…she recognised him instantly, though he looked older, his hair had grown out, and there was a solemnity to his face that had never been there before. She remembered him smirking and irreverent, irritating beyond belief, but fierce and loyal to Robb… Theon Greyjoy.

They were all waiting for someone.

And Daenerys Targaryen was impatient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N.: Sorry this one was so long! I got carried away, and the chapter sort of just ran away from me! 
> 
> FACE-CLAIMS: There are a few for this chapter, actually for this story!
> 
> Queen Rhaella: Lea Seydoux (when she was in La Belle et la Bête)  
> Rhaegar: Combo of Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth  
> Elia Martell: Gal Gadot  
> Alynore Tyrell: Kristine Froseth  
> Gendry: Henry Cavill, mmmmm…..
> 
> I love the costume designer’s theory on GoT that current Lannister fashions were heavily influenced over the last two generations by Targaryen court dress. The asymmetric cuts and elaborate folds and metal detailing are distinctively other in comparison to the other styles worn in Westeros. I like the theory that the Lannisters, through proximity to the court, with Tywin as the Hand of the King to Aerys for decades, had adopted some of the foreign, Old Valyria, Targaryan styles worn at court; and Cersei, expecting to marry Prince Rhaegar, would have adopted the style of dress she saw worn at court, especially by Queen Rhaella, similarly to how Sansa dressed to please Joffrey and Cersei in the beginning. Cersei was already imagining herself part of the royal family, and would certainly have dressed as if she belonged by Rhaegar’s side - and her family could afford it. Viserys wears a style he remembers from his childhood at court, which shows the same asymmetric cuts and folded, rich fabrics. After the end of the Targaryen dynasty, the Lannisters became the true power in Westeros and their dress was a nod to them usurping Targaryen power, usurping the fashion trends the Targaryens had set and making them their own - especially Cersei. Look at a picture of Viserys, compare it to young-Cersei’s dress, and there are a lot of similarities in the cut, draping and tie details.


	13. Never Forget What You Are

**Valyrian Steel**

_13_

_Never Forget What You Are_

* * *

He was glad to be off that _fucking_ ship.

On solid footing at last, the crashing waves at his back, Jon could almost have dropped to his knees and kissed the worn stones of the tiny, paved quay.

“Don’t know how you’ve lived most of your life on the water, Ser Davos,” Jon moaned, grimacing, and the older man chuckled good-naturedly, climbing up onto the jetty beside him. A handful of their men had rowed them to shore, the first Stark ship built in centuries moored in a choice area Davos trusted to shelter their ship from the worst of the elements. Davos was surprised where the Targaryen girl had anchored her armada: One foul storm and she would lose half her ships.

Jon wondered why no-one had warned her.

It struck Jon again, as it had when they first anchored, that the tiny town flirting hesitantly with the unpredictable coast should have been more active. Winter had come: Ser Davos had told Jon that the island of Dragonstone relied on the winter shoals migrating past to warmer waters to feed themselves. There were fewer than a handful of boats in the docks, including Jon’s little dinghy, and only one of them, Davos said, was a vessel built for the open seas, able to withstand the additional weight of net-fishing the shoals. The other boats were simple little dinghies intended to navigate around the island to the other hamlets when the water levels rose and drenched the paved walkways between Dragonstone castle and the port and villages.

“You get used to it,” Ser Davos said cheerfully. “Makes you truly appreciate the times you have solid earth beneath your boots. There are those more poetic than myself who wax lyrical about ships as the embodiment of _freedom_.”

“Tell that to the slaves transported across the world by them,” Jon grumbled; he was in a foul mood, and had been ever since they had set sail from White Harbour. He’d sent Sam and Gilly and Little Sam south by ship and would never be able to apologise enough. A horse or his own two feet were all Jon needed.

“You’re in a pretty temper,” Ser Davos teased, his eyes glinting.

“Everything’s…still _swaying_ ,” Jon moaned, closing his eyes as his vision span, and he ignored Ser Davos’ chuckle as he inhaled slowly, the disorientation subsiding. It wasn’t nausea he suffered from. He opened his eyes, frowning around the small port. “Where are all the fishing boats? Surely Stannis didn’t leave the island unable to provide for itself through the winter?”

“No, Stannis was prudent; and there’s been no-one here since the Targaryen girl arrived,” Ser Davos said, frowning in the weak sunlight. It was still brighter and hotter than anything Jon remembered - except that one, rare sunrise as he mounted the Wall after a long, terrifying climb. “There should be a small fleet bringing in the fish to preserve for the winter. The first true winter storm and the shoals will be gone.”

“So where are the ships?”

“Likely, they’ve been commandeered,” Ser Davos said darkly. “This Targaryen queen won’t want anyone smuggling news to the mainland about her invasion.”

“So the islanders must starve?” Jon frowned. Ser Davos did not answer: He was looking up the hill. Dragonstone, the island, was volcanic: Its earth was rich and arable due to the volcanic soil, Winterfell’s library had told Jon, when he’d cared to investigate with Maester Wolkan’s help. Ser Davos had told Jon that the crops grown on Dragonstone were plentiful - but the fighting men, who would plough and work the fields, had rallied under Stannis’s banners and died for him, either at the Battle of the Blackwater, or outside the gates of Winterfell during Stannis’s failed charge against the Boltons. How were the people of Dragonstone supposed to survive the winter while Daenerys Targaryen played out her invasion? “A poor precedent she’s setting.”

“Jon,” Ser Davos murmured warningly, and Jon followed his gaze. A small party was approaching, led by two pretty girls, one with rich amber-coloured skin, wide eyes heavily lashed and dark reddish hair, the other pale-skinned with high cheekbones, slanting dark eyes and a rosebud mouth, and long, silky black hair. They had been chosen for their beauty, Jon knew: They were both young maids on the cusp of womanhood, and several of the men surrounding them eyed them hungrily, as they carried banners emblazoned with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen. Both wore their hair in elaborate braids, dressed similarly to a tall, dark-skinned woman taking care not to stride ahead of a familiar, stunted figure.

Tyrion Lannister.

It was the last note in the Imp’s letter that had had Jon believing its authenticity, as was Lord Tyrion’s intention. And here he was, dressed richly, his hair longer, darker, curling wildly, his face almost cloven in two by a deep scar, but smiling irreverently all the same, just as Jon remembered him - a curious mixture of rare human decency and arrogance.

“The bastard of Winterfell,” he said mockingly, and Jon gazed fondly at him, knowing he was mocking those who condemned Jon for his birth. _Never forget what you are. Other people will not. Wear it like armour, and it can never be used to hurt you_ … In Jon’s memory, Lord Tyrion had not been nearly as short as he seemed, standing before him for the first time in nearly seven years.

“The dwarf of Casterly Rock,” he responded grimly, and felt his face unfreezing as he smiled; the Imp grinned, and they reached out to clasp hands.

“I believe we last saw each other at the top of the Wall,” Lord Tyrion said, and Jon nodded. That had been a very long time ago. Before Uncle Benjen had ventured beyond the Wall on his last, ill-fated Ranging. Before the Night King, before Mance…before Ygritte…

“You were pissing off the edge, if I remember right,” Jon said, and Lord Tyrion grinned. It made the scar slashed across his face more pronounced. “You’ve picked up some scars along the road.”

“Well, it wasn’t all feather beds and fine port by the fireside with ancient scrolls to peruse, I assure you,” Lord Tyrion said grimly. “But, we’re both still here.”

“In spite of people’s best efforts to make it otherwise,” Jon said, remembering what Sansa had told him of Lord Tyrion. “It’s good to see you again, my lord. Sansa will be pleased to know you’re safe and whole; she told me of your kindness toward her.” Lord Tyrion didn’t hide his surprise. “Ser Davos, this is Lord Tyrion Lannister. Lord Tyrion, my adviser, Ser Davos Seaworth.”

“Ah, the Onion Knight,” Lord Tyrion nodded, reaching to clasp Ser Davos’ hand. “We fought on opposite sides at the Battle of Blackwater Bay.”

“Unluckily for me,” Ser Davos said quietly and simply. He never spoke of his losses, though Jon knew his son had been killed fighting for Stannis. Jon’s gaze flickered to the dark-skinned woman waiting with her hands clasped, watching. There was a beguiling smile on her face, her dark eyes twinkling. She had froths of tight curls shaping her pretty face, and stood slim and tall.

“My lady…” He gave her a respectful half-bow.

“Ah… Missandei is the Queen’s most trusted advisor,” Lord Tyrion said, introducing the young woman.

“Welcome to Dragonstone. Our Queen knows this is a long journey; she appreciates the efforts you have made on her behalf,” Missandei said blithely. “If you wouldn’t mind handing over your weapons.”

He did mind. Lord Tyrion caught his eye, briefly. Jon sighed deeply, glancing away from the woman to the shore.

“Where are the fishing-boats?” he asked, flicking his eyes back to the woman.

“Pardon?” She blinked at him, bemused.

“The fishing-boats. Ser Davos has spent many years at Dragonstone, he tells me the villagers rely on shoals of fish migrating south, to sustain them through the winter,” Jon said. They wanted his weapons; he would not give them. They intended to unnerve him, to make him impotent by disarming him. He had Sansa sitting on one shoulder, Larra’s ghost heavy on the other, both murmuring advice in his ear. “There’s not a single boat out on the water fishing.”

“The ships have been incorporated into Queen Daenerys’ armada, in preparations for her invasion,” Missandei said coolly, a well-practiced smile never slipping from her face. “They were happy to contribute to Queen Daenerys’ war efforts.”

“I’m sure the threat of a few hundred thousand Dothraki has silenced a good many complaints in the past,” Jon said darkly.

“We have been expecting you,” said Missandei, and repeated, “If you wouldn’t mind handing over your weapons.”

“I do. I’m sure it’s within the realms of your two-hundred thousand Dothraki to put me down if I pose a threat to your queen,” Jon said, his gloved hand resting comfortably around the hilt of Long Claw. “I did not come all this way to provoke war with her.”

Lord Tyrion did not insist.

He could not have expected that Jon would hand over his weapons, or leave his men defenceless. Missandei clearly had: The brutish men accompanying her, the beetle-like faceless soldiers flanking her did, but it was Lord Tyrion who broke the tension, brushed away the issue. He did not press that Jon give up his sword, or that his men remain unprotected. This was how things were done in Westeros.

And Northerners were notoriously stubborn. The Queen could walk her sorry arse down all those steps to treat with Jon at the quay if she felt so inclined; Jon only needed the source of the dragonglass mine, and Ser Davos would take care of the rest. He had come to meet Daenerys Stormborn as a courtesy.

He was not going to tell her that he had no other choice. To let her have the power to destroy all he held precious, just out of spite.

“Come, it is a long walk to the castle, believe me,” Lord Tyrion said, grimacing. “You must tell me of your journey.”

They were flanked by the scuttling soldiers and swaggering wildmen from the Dothraki Sea, but Lord Tyrion gestured to the biggest of the Dothraki and he muttered something in a guttural tongue to his men, and they turned and headed back through the tiny, empty seaside town, to a paved path accessible only due to the low tide, which led straight to a walled path that wound up the side of a mountain to Dragonstone castle. The walled, fortified path looked almost like fangs cut into the side of the mountain, jagged and sharp.

“That’s a lot of steps,” Jon said wearily, though he was glad of the walk: He had been cooped up too long on that ship. Jon glanced down at the Hand of the Queen. “How are your legs, my lord?”

“Better now than they will be at the top,” Lord Tyrion grimaced, and he gave Jon a small, appreciative smile that Jon had remembered how awkward it sometimes was for Lord Tyrion. This world was not fashioned for cripples, bastards or broken things.

“Consider yourself lucky. At least there’s steps,” Jon sighed, gazing out at the jagged walkway.

“You’ve scaled worse?” Lord Tyrion asked, glancing up at Jon, who nodded grimly, his stomach hurting as a flash of red hair glinted in his mind’s eye, the billowing gold-limned clouds parting to reveal a blazing sun over fresh green seas as far as the eye could see.

“Aye.”

“The Wall?”

“Aye,” Jon nodded, and their boots splashed subtly in the puddles along the paved walkway to the castle. As natural fortifications went, the Targaryens who had fortified Dragonstone as Old Valyria’s most westerly outpost had known what they were doing: In high tide, the castle itself was accessible only from the air - the steep, jagged cliffs of the island were impossible to climb, and the sandy beaches were few and far between, protected by impassable bays and submerged rock-formations that had wrecked armadas, their corpses rotting eerily, and haunted by sharks and other monsters of the deep. Every point of the walled path up to the castle was easily defended: Jon recognised the work of genius that was Dragonstone. “Up and over, and all the way down again. Nothing but pick-axes, spikes on my boots - and a lot of rope.”

“I hope that marvellous contraption did not break?” Lord Tyrion said, looking startled. Jon almost smiled: Then he remembered…and the smile died prematurely.

“I wasn’t at Castle Black,” Jon said ominously, and his grim tone was enough that Lord Tyrion, however curious, did not ask for details.

After a moment, Lord Tyrion said thoughtfully, “You _have_ had an interesting journey.”

“My sister tells me you quelled the riots in King’s Landing when the smallfolk were starving, provided for the people,” Jon said, to change the subject. He never dwelled too long on Ygritte…a name that sounded far too much like _regret_. Better to think of other things. Of a living girl kissed by fire who was relying on him… “That was autumn, after the longest summer in living memory… White ravens have been sent from the Citadel.”

“Winter is finally here,” Lord Tyrion said, with a thoughtful, amused little laugh.

“As my father promised,” Jon said heavily. He frowned at the Hand of the Queen. “It seems a simple blunder to actively prevent the smallfolk from being able to provide for themselves, my lord.”

Tyrion gave Jon a meaningful look, murmuring, “It was not my decision to commandeer the vessels.”

“Surely a Hand’s role is to prevent a Queen from making unpopular decisions?” he asked, aware as he did so that _he_ had made an unpopular decision - but one that was necessary for the survival of his people.

“Did Ser Davos advise against you journeying south?” Lord Tyrion asked.

“Vehemently,” Jon said, his lips quirking with irony.

“And yet here you are.”

“Yet here I am,” he sighed, his legs starting to burn; he slowed his pace to match Lord Tyrion’s, and their honour-guard had to slow down.

Lord Tyrion narrowed his eyes at Jon. “Because whatever you’re here for is more important than the risk to your life.” Jon sighed heavily, and gazed ahead, at the featureless soldiers in beetle-like shell armour of pristine black leather, at Missandei in her neat overcoat and boots, and the two young girls who may never live to womanhood if he failed.

“Is your Queen’s invasion worth more than the lives of the smallfolk of Dragonstone?” Jon asked quietly, glancing back at Lord Tyrion. “They were once her family’s people to provide for and protect… How did a Lannister become Hand of the Queen to Daenerys Targaryen?”

“It’s a long and bloody tale - and to be honest, I’ve been drunk for most of it,” Lord Tyrion grinned, with a hint of his old impishness, but there was a solemnity in his eyes now that Jon did not remember. “I shall share it with you, of course, Your Grace - at some point, I should also like to hear how a bastard steward in the Night’s Watch became King in the North.”

“It’s a long and bloody tale,” Jon echoed, and Lord Tyrion smiled. Jon told him grimly, “My bannermen think I’m a fool for coming here.”

“Of course they do,” Lord Tyrion said lightly. “If I was your Hand, I would’ve advised against it.”

“Everyone advised against it.”

“And you ignored them,” Lord Tyrion said, giving Jon a measuring look. “General rule of thumb: Stark men don’t fare well when they travel south.”

“True,” Jon agreed. There was no arguing with the horrors his family had so recently endured. He thought of Sansa, sewn into her armoured gowns at Winterfell, swathed in heavy fabrics and all but telling the world to keep away…he worried about her for the thousandth time, alone at the castle with Littlefinger lurking and plotting and lusting… “But I’m not a Stark.”

He had never heard such a sound as exploded through the sky - in the North there were few reptiles but even in his marrow, Jon heard the shrieking, reptilian birdlike scream that threatened to shatter his eardrums, heard the crackle and flapping of great armoured leathery wings like the rumble of nearing thunderstorms and _knew_ , by the fire that sparked in his blood and the dread that turned his belly to jelly… _dragon_.

Jon had battled giants, had fought off wights and killed White Walkers.

He moved to block Lord Tyrion, hand on the hilt of his sword, that monstrous scream igniting every drop of rage boiling in his heart, frustration and anger and desperation, fire dancing along his veins, stubborn and terrified and courageous to a fault, and Jon’s lips parted, and his anger dissolved, and he gazed in heartbroken awe and wonder and dread as a monster from legend soared and whorled and dived for him, monstrous and reptilian, onyx and blood-red like the banners carried before him. Enormous wings beat the air around him, making even the Unsullied stagger in the momentary gale, and Jon gasped, eyes on the enormous creature flapping its great wings as it soared through the air.

“Not the usual reaction,” Lord Tyrion said, gaping at Jon, his cunning eyes narrowed. “For a moment there I thought you may slay the dragon to protect me.”

“For a moment, so did I,” Jon panted, staring at the _dragon_.

“You’ve impressive reactions, Jon Snow. I wonder if even Drogon may have thought better of provoking you, the look on your face. It would have made a comical song. The King in the North defending the Imp against Balerion reborn,” Lord Tyrion mused. The thought seemed to tickle him; he chuckled happily to himself as he waddled up the steps beside Jon, who stumbled several times, turning to watch the dragon wheel and turn overhead. “Do you know, you’ve quite given me the inspiration I needed for me evening’s entertainments! I shall write the song tonight, luxuriating in Qartheen silk sheets and getting steadily drunk on fine Arbour amber wines while my whore licks my cock!”

Jon grinned in spite of himself, remembering Lord Tyrion’s time at the Wall, bemoaning the lack of female companionship. “Sansa told me you had given up your favourite pastimes, too busy ruling King’s Landing.”

“Ah, Sansa… Does my elegant wife pine for me?” Lord Tyrion asked, grinning, his eyes twinkling. “Don’t worry. T’was a sham marriage - and unconsummated.”

Jon winced. “I didn’t ask.”

“Well - it was,” Lord Tyrion asserted. He frowned. ”Wasn’t.”

Jon gave him a sidelong look. “You wanted it to be. I’m not blind to Sansa’s beauty. And nor is she ignorant of men’s desire for her.”

“Doesn’t matter, either way.”

“Sansa told me about your marriage,” Jon murmured. She had told Jon, but he didn’t want the Queen’s soldiers whispering in her ear. “Your wedding-night.”

“Truthfully, I don’t remember much of it!”

“She does.”

“The North remembers,” Lord Tyrion quoted. “She’s much smarter than she lets on, Sansa.”

“She’s letting on,” Jon said grimly, because he worried. Cleverness could only protect her for so long. At a certain point, swords would be drawn, and then she would be powerless. And he was hundreds of miles away from her. He had to trust she could keep herself safe until his return… He dreaded what Littlefinger plotted in his absence. He worried for Sansa. They had never been close as children; and had been separated for years - yet Jon could not _abide_ being apart from her now.

“Good.”

Jon sighed, glancing down at Lord Tyrion. “Separated from your wife and you embrace the luxuries you once enjoyed…”

“Licentiousness, I have found - through devoted research - is the keystone of my brilliance. You cannot have one without the other,” Lord Tyrion mused, and Jon’s lips twitched. “I endured a brief period of sobriety, Jon Snow, I have no wish to repeat it. Others will agree I am far more useful as a drunken little lust-filled beast than a browbeaten bookkeeper. You must meet my whore! She has a very fine voice. When I have finished your song, I will send her to sing it to you.”

“Thank you for the offer, my lord, but there is no need,” Jon said, hiding his laugh, and his blush.

“Come, winter is here - surely you must have a woman warming your bed?” Lord Tyrion suggested. “There were no women at the Wall.”

“There were more than you’d think,” Jon said shrewdly, and Lord Tyrion turned his lecherous grin on him.

“Ah, one of the ghosts from that long, bloody tale you’ve promised to tell me.”

“You’ve ghosts yourself, my lord?”

“Far too many, Jon Snow,” Lord Tyrion sighed heavily. “Join me for a cup of amber wine from the Arbour, at the very least. I did often think of you while I sat to feast in the sultry warmth of King’s Landing.”

“I thought of you, too, Lord Tyrion, remembering your wisdom,” Jon said honestly, and Lord Tyrion gave a small, sad, satisfied smile.

“How did the lads fare? What were their names…Grenn,” Lord Tyrion squinted in thought, and Jon’s smile died. “What charming nicknames did Ser Alliser bequeath him?”

“The Aurochs,” Jon whispered, gulping.

“That was it. What was the other’s name - the runty looking one?”

“Pyp,” Jon blurted, pained. “He had a fine voice for songs.”

“That’s the way of it, is it?” Lord Tyrion said, noting the pain in Jon’s voice, his face. ”How many brothers have you lost?”

“Hundreds.”

“Myself, I have lost one.”

Jon frowned down at the dwarf. “Ser Jaime was always your champion, was he not? You have great love for each other.”

“The bond between brothers is complicated…but I don’t need to tell you that,” Lord Tyrion said, giving Jon a wry smile that did not touch his eyes, which remained dark and haunted. Angry.

“No…” No, Jon didn’t need reminding that brothers were complicated. He had lost three of his own blooded brothers, and his bond with Robb had always been…what it was.

Lost in thought, Jon gazed at the dragons - three of them, one cream and gold, one green and bronze, the other, the largest, black striated with blood-red - and found himself, unbidden, drawn into his memories of childhood, of Robb and Theon Greyjoy, of pretty Sansa sequestered away with her septa and her sewing, of wild Arya, and impish Bran, and tiny…tiny Rickon. Listening to Larra tell stories of Targaryen dragons that kept the little ones still enough to have their baths before the roaring hearth, mesmerised.

“Jon?” Lord Tyrion said kindly. He sighed, gazing at the dragons too. “I’d say you get used to them…but you never really do.”

“What my sisters wouldn’t have given to see this,” Jon admitted what was at the forefront of his mind, the agony it cost him to voice what he barely entertained thinking about. His sisters. “Arya would’ve loved it. And Larra…”

“Ah…beautiful Larra,” Lord Tyrion grinned, eyes twinkling. Jon had forgotten the Imp was fond of his twin-sister. “Do you know, I have lived some number of years, and the memories do tend to merge together - especially when one considers the perpetual state of drunkenness in which I prefer to spend my days - but some memories are clear as crystal. Alarra Snow, her hair curling to her waist and bedecked with wildflowers, fearfully drunk and arguing the complexities of symbolism in ancient High Valryian odes while soundly _thrashing_ me at dice. Do you _know_ how rare it is to find a beautiful woman who can coherently argue their views on obscure ancient poetry after drinking Arbour strong-wine?”

Jon smiled, heartbroken. “She’d be pleased at least that’s your lasting memory of her.”

“She thoroughly seduced me, without revealing an inch of flesh,” Lord Tyrion grinned lecherously. “Quite the accomplishment… Come, their mother is waiting for you.” He nodded at the dragons, and Jon kept climbing.

He had dealt with worse than dragons.

He had outlived worse than Daenerys Stormborn.


	14. Bad Blood

**Valyrian Steel**

_14_

_Bad Blood_

* * *

It was all carefully designed, of course, to intimidate, to set him on edge, to put his men in discomfort. To undermine his _power_. Effectively, trying to strip it away: To make him _impotent_.

Jon had expected it.

He remembered Ramsey Bolton snidely muttering that he’d heard rumours: That by the way people spoke, Jon was the greatest swordsman to ever live… Long Claw was not his only weapon: Sansa had hammered it into his mind before he left Winterfell. He had the benefit of an _education_. And a purpose greater than satisfying his pride.

This was what Maester Luwin had spent so many hours assiduously tutoring him for. Him, and Robb, and Larra, and Theon, the four of them cloistered in the schoolroom during snowy afternoons after drilling in the courtyard under Ser Rodrik’s hawk-eyed instruction. Geography and economics and the histories of Westerosi politics, religious uprisings and civil wars - context and cause and effect - Valyrian sagas, military strategy, patience and reflection, basic medicine, religions, foreign cultures and woodworking… He’d gained a fine education from Maester Luwin. Compounded by his experiences at the Wall. Anyone who knew the Old Bear could see his qualities in Jon’s leadership - consistent, and _fair_ \- and from his father… As King in the North, Jon emulated the example Ned Stark had set as High Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North: Winterfell was strong because Stark leadership was consistent and fair, as the Old Bear’s had been, as Ned Stark’s had been, as now Jon’s was. Consistent, and fair, and inspiring loyalty and love.

He’d left the North relieved that no more talk of stripping lands and castles from ancient Northern families had been grumbled around the Great Hall. With the recent animosities between Stark bannermen and their neighbours, the civil uprisings that had cost Robb the War of the Five Kings as much as Lord Frey’s betrayal of guest-right had, Jon needed unity in the North more than ever, he needed to put their disagreements to rest. He needed the Umbers and the Karstarks especially, and the men loyal to them, to remain focused and loyal to _his_ cause: To their very _survival_.

Soon, they would all appreciate that Jon was right, no matter their personal feelings about his leadership.

He fought for the privilege of their lives.

Sansa had told Jon that he had a skill with _people_. He built relationships with them - bastards, Free Folk and lords alike - and treated them as equals, as if they _mattered_ to him.

 _Because they did_ , Jon had thought, when she’d told him that over a rich stew one windy night, just the two of them together in Father’s solar with a fire blazing, Sansa’s needle glinting in the light as Jon scratched out yet another raven-scroll and discussed inventory of the grain-stores and success of the root harvests from Winterfell’s great glasshouses. _They do matter_.

He would have given in long ago, if he didn’t believe that. He was a bastard: And while she lived, Lady Stark would have ensured Jon never had anything to do with any position of authority at Winterfell or in the North that threatened Robb’s inheritance - so, it was the Night’s Watch Jon had committed his life to. Until he lost it.

Now he sat in Robb’s seat, in their father’s seat, and he alone could do anything to stop the coming storm from wiping out the world of Men. Because he had looked the Night King in the eye. He knew what was coming. And he’d fought tooth-and-nail to reclaim Winterfell and piece the North back together, consolidating power to put himself and Sansa in a position of strength - to make a difference: To be in a position to _fight_ the coming storm, not just endure it.

They couldn’t just wait it out and hope the White Walkers marched on past Winterfell.

The Night King didn’t want _resources_. He didn’t want gold. He didn’t even want power.

He wanted the end of all Men.

He wouldn’t ignore Winterfell because its people were poor, and tired, and had little political power because of both those factors. He wasn’t going to head straight to King’s Landing and take the Iron Throne from Cersei Lannister or Daenerys Targaryen or whoever found themselves sitting upon it. The Night King saw them all as meat for his army, to erase their world.

Jon knew _they_ \- lords and low-borns and Free Folk alike - were the only way to stop the Night King.

And after looking the Night King in the eye, after fighting and killing some of his lethal commanders - well, was a girl on a jagged throne truly all that intimidating?

The dragons whorled and careened and spiralled outside, and perhaps Jon could hear their great wings flapping in the corner of his ear, because no other sound echoed through the dank halls of Dragonstone. The fortress forged from Valyrian spells and dragonfire was as impressive as Maester Luwin’s books had always promised, but something felt… _wrong_. He was used to the hustle and bustle of Winterfell, the pleasant murmur of noise even in the topmost towers, the ring of steel from the forges and the scullions singing in the pantries of the cavernous kitchens, the small halls where the old women spun and dyed wool and worked industriously on tapestries as small children played at their feet and tugged their sisters’ long braids as they sewed tunics and hose and gossiped and flirted with the stableboys who snuck through the laundry to steal a kiss behind the sheets of linen.

Their footsteps echoed off the dank stones, and for a second, the torch-light flickering, Jon couldn’t help but think of Shireen Baratheon, perpetually kind-hearted, gentle and young…this had been her home. A Baratheon stronghold, a backhanded gift from Robert Baratheon to his younger brother for failing to intercept the last Targaryens as they fled this very fortress so many years ago. How had that sweet girl grown up so content, so sweet and kind, in this wretched place?

Was there a person in the world who had deserved her fate _less_ than Princess Shireen?

Strange where his mind went to, perhaps it was Ser Davos’ nearness, or perhaps it was passing stonemasons removing Stannis’ personal sigil where it had been engraved in the wall over a three-headed dragon motif, perhaps it was his first glimpse into the throne room and a cluster of young girls around a stout older woman, but Jon thought of Princess Shireen, and found himself angry enough to raise his chin, set his shoulders, and stride into the room as if he owned it.

 _Never forget what you are_ , Tyrion had advised him, so many years ago. Jon knew what he was. Bastard-born twin of a sister he missed with every beat of his heart, a tried-and-true warrior, a brother of the Night’s Watch, their Lord Commander murdered in cold blood, avenger of the Red Wedding, fierce protector of what was right and good, friend of the Free Folk, King in the North.

 _King in the North_. He hadn’t inherited the title, hadn’t taken it by the edge of his sword, hadn’t _declared_ it: He had _earned_ it in his own right.

He had nothing to dread from meeting this self-proclaimed Queen.

Her court was small, mismatched: golden Tyrell roses and the sun-spear of the Martells glinted in the candlelight. On a jagged throne sat a small woman with long silvery-gold hair, hands resting neatly in her lap, back straight, expression imperious, bordering hostile. The Queen’s advisers took their places on the steps leading to her throne, Missandei again wearing that benign smile, Lord Tyrion looking rather uncomfortable as the Dothraki and Unsullied took their places lining the walls, blocking the heavy doors that were closed behind the last of Jon’s men.

Jon saw the Tyrells; he noted the little girls clustered around the Queen of Thorns. He supposed the elegant olive-skinned woman might be Ellaria Sand, paramour of the legendary Red Viper of Dorne, and beside her two of her many children by the prince. Sands. His cousins.

He saw the Queen on her uncomfortable throne.

He ignored them all.

Because Jon’s gaze was fixed solely on the one person he had vowed he would beat to death with his bare hands if he ever saw him again.

Missandei’s clear voice echoed off the dank halls as Jon stared at Theon Greyjoy, heralding her queen. Jon didn’t hear a word.

The details of his brother’s murder whispered through his mind, Grey Wind’s head sewn to Robb’s body after both were riddled with arrows and butchered: The fate of Robb’s wife, and their unborn baby. Even Lady Catelyn, her throat slit to the bone, her body dumped into the river. His siblings’ mother. Northmen butchered by their thousands.

 _Sansa_ , brutalised by the family that had betrayed theirs.

 _Larra_ , fleeing the very same place, with a simple giant, a broken boy and a tiny feral brother - _fleeing_ Theon.

Sansa, escaping Winterfell, the one place she was entitled to feel safe - _guided_ by Theon.

Theon Greyjoy met Jon’s gaze hesitantly. Tension crackled in the throne room, but Jon didn’t look at the Queen, nor did he give false apologies. He did not bow to her. Did not acknowledge her, too consumed with the rage that roared in his ears, clenching his jaw, as he stared at his family’s betrayer. Robb, Larra, Brandon, Rickon and Sansa.

Robb may yet be alive had Theon fought beside him, rather than betray him.

Larra would never have ventured beyond the Wall with their crippled brother and a simple giant.

Rickon would not have been shot through the heart mere feet from Jon as he galloped to save his little brother.

 _Sansa_ …

Sansa may be alive because of Theon.

 _But Larra_ … a voice whimpered in the back of his mind, a tiny voice Maester Aemon had coaxed him to silence forever, the voice of his childhood, a tiny heartsick moan of the little lost boy Jon had always been, seeking the love and devotion and companionship of his twin, his equal in every way, his friend, his fiercest love. _Larra_ …

When Ironborn had taken Winterfell and the North was no longer safe, Larra had taken their brothers beyond the Wall…

Who had lit the bodies, to stop Larra and Hodor and broken Bran from joining the Night King’s legions? His heart cracked like a great fissure in the ice-meadows of the true North, depthless and devastating.

He _wished_ there was some way Larra and Bran may have beaten all odds and survived the most hostile place in the world. He wished it, when he allowed himself to dwell on it: The truth was, it hurt too much to linger on his sister’s fate, the fate of Bran who he’d last seen comatose in his bed, his harridan mother telling Jon it should have been _him_ lying broken…

He didn’t linger on Larra’s fate, when thinking about her put him in danger of breaking under the weight of the knowledge that everything he had fought for, ever since he left Winterfell, had been for nothing. Larra was dead. Because their family had been betrayed; and Lady Catelyn would rather he had died at the edge of the world than let him be near his family, be useful, be Robb’s fiercest ally and protector and soldier, defender of his sisters…

Theon Greyjoy gulped as he stepped forward tentatively, until he was barely a foot away from him. “Jon… I didn’t know…you were coming here… Sansa, is she -“

Jon forgot he was strapped with weapons. He forgot soldiers and savages lined the walls of the hall, would skewer him in a heartbeat if their Queen gave the signal. He forgot Ser Davos was beside him; he forgot that his men were behind him.

All he saw, in that instant, was an image of Larra, dead and rotting and icy blue-eyed in the snow.

His long, clever fingers wrapped themselves around Theon’s throat, and he squeezed, his body on fire with rage and grief and guilt.

Jon didn’t notice that he had shot over a whole head taller than Theon Greyjoy, or that a grim-faced woman in kraken-emblazoned leather lazily gripped the hilt of her dagger as she watched Jon strangle Theon with his bare hand.

He only noticed the grief and guilt in Theon’s eyes, and only barely registered that Theon was not fighting him off.

He recalled strangling someone in the crypt before he had left Winterfell.

Littlefinger had sold Sansa to the Boltons.

Theon Greyjoy had saved her from them.

“ _What you did for her - is the_ only _reason I’m not killing you_!” he promised Theon, seething with fury, roughly releasing him, and he thought Theon nodded as he staggered away, massaging his throat and coughing.

“Lord Greyjoy, you know this man?” asked a cold voice. The Queen, trying to insert herself - tired of being ignored.

Wheezing, never breaking eye-contact with Jon, Theon said quietly, sorrowfully, “He’s my brother.”

Jon clenched his jaw, his veins throbbing with pain as fire raced through them, _fury_ , itching to strangle him again. “Robb was your brother. Bran and Rickon were your brothers.” His voice reduced to a whisper as he seethed, “ _Larra_ was your sister. And you betrayed them.”

Theon had the grace to look ashamed as he admitted, “I did.”

“Larra…she was the she-wolf you told me about, wasn’t she?” The woman in the abused leather looked thoughtfully at Jon. Her voice was soft, grim, monotonous, but laced with the irony Jon remembered in Theon when they were boys. “She killed three Ironborn with her fangs and claws and a cleaver.”

Theon glanced from the woman to Jon, and corrected quietly, “It was a meat-hook.”

Yara Greyjoy looked fondly at her brother, and then gazed at Jon, not quite a smile on her face. “What we do to protect our little brothers.”

“She sounds like quite a warrior,” said the cold voice. “A wonder you did not bring her south with you to protect you.”

Jon’s gaze did not leave Theon’s face as he said bluntly, “She’s dead. Do I need protection, Your Grace?” Finally, he turned his gaze to Daenerys Targaryen.

“It seems not; you still bear your weapons,” she said coolly, and Jon scoffed softly. He was still strapped with his weapons - and had gone for the kill with his bare hands in spite of the dozens of soldiers lining the halls. “Did my advisor not ask you to hand over your weapons?”

“She did; I refused. I won’t leave my men unable to defend themselves, Your Grace,” Jon said. _All this effort, for one man_ , he thought, and Sansa’s voice murmured, _She’s threatened by you_.

“To whom am I speaking?” the Queen sniffed, as if she did not know.

“This is Jon Snow. Son of Lord Eddard Stark, brother of Robb Stark, a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch,” said Theon Greyjoy, and there was something new and unfamiliar in his voice when he added, “He is King in the North.”

Almost like respect.

Jon had never heard it before.

“Thank you for travelling so far, my lord. I hope the seas weren’t too rough,” said Daenerys Stormborn, and Jon’s eyes lanced to the Queen. _That’s the way of it, is it_? he thought, sweeping his gaze slowly from the tip of her silver-gold head to her leather-covered toes, and not hiding his disdain. He had parleyed with Free Folk with more manners.

“He’s not a lord.”

Jon glanced at Theon Greyjoy. He had spoken quietly, but clearly, and Theon Greyjoy was staring defiantly at the Queen, his chin raised. “He is _King_ in the North.”

“I never did receive a formal education, Lord Greyjoy,” Daenerys Targaryen said coldly, and continued with a condescending air that would have immediately put Larra’s back up, itching to verbally slap her fiercely back into her place. “But I could have sworn I read the last King in the North was Torrhen Stark, who bent the knee to my ancestor, Aegon Targaryen. In exchange for his life, and the lives of the Northmen, Torrhen Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity. Or do I have my facts wrong?”

Glancing away from Theon, Jon said politely, “I wasn’t there, Your Grace.”

“No, of course not.” A cold, condescending smile. “But still, an oath is an oath…and perpetuity means… What _does_ perpetuity mean, Lord Tyrion?”

The old woman in black exchanged a _moue_ with the eldest of her rosebuds, the kind of look Larra might once have given Jon, and the look Sansa had described to Jon when she had told him about the Queen of Thorns. Lord Tyrion grimaced a little, as he remarked, “Forever.”

“Forever,” Daenerys Targaryen repeated, with a poisonous smile. “So I assume, _my lord_ , you’re here to bend the knee.”

Theon Greyjoy’s eyes danced from the Queen to Jon, as his grim-faced sister frowned; across the throne room, the elderly Tyrell raised an eyebrow at the veiled Martell woman.

“I am not.” Jon knew his face was grim, implacable. The face of every Northern king who had come before him.

“Oh. That is unfortunate,” Daenerys Targaryen said. “You’ve travelled all this way to break faith with House Targaryen?”

At that, Jon laughed outright, his earlier rage at Theon swept aside, rankled by this tiny woman with her condescension and arrogance. Jon had allied with and advised and betrayed kings before: And Daenerys Targaryen could have learned much from Mance Rayder, and from Stannis Baratheon. She could have learned from Ygritte, and Tormund, and Lady Mormont, and Sansa, and Princess Shireen, Samwell Tarly and Gilly.

He wondered what Sansa would make of her - and knew, in his heart, that Sansa’s teeth would be set on edge by her - reminded all too vividly, though they shared no physical attributes beyond an untouchable, polished beauty, of Cersei Lannister.

Jon remembered the look on Cersei Lannister’s face as Larra was untied from the post where she had been flogged - for no other reason than because Cersei had taken it as an insult to her beauty that Larra possessed so much of her own, and the King had noticed.

Vicious, cold beauty. Arrogance.

Jon had half a mind to coax her North simply to watch Sansa shred her to pieces.

In her absence, the task fell to him, Larra’s voice echoing in his ears, memories of their debates in the schoolroom with Maester Luwin filling him with warmth, and humour, and sorrow.

“Any Northern oaths sworn to House Targaryen went up in smoke with the bodies of Rickard and Brandon Stark as your father burned them alive. Any bonds of fealty were broken when Rhaegar Targaryen kidnapped and _raped_ Lyanna Stark,” Jon declared bluntly, and Lord Tyrion winced. Daenerys Stormborn did not react. “House Targaryen broke faith; and the North remembers.” Theon Greyjoy smiled sorrowfully, eyes distant as he gazed at the floor. The words of all Northerners, ever since the Red Wedding. Daenerys Targaryen’s pretty features became unpleasant as her face twisted with anger. Jon glanced at Theon, who had been there when Jon had been forbidden the privilege... “And the last King in the North was not Torrhen, the King Who Knelt. The last King in the North was the Young Wolf, Robb Stark, who was undefeated on the battlefield when he was murdered. I’m not certain when Lord Tyrion came into your service, Your Grace, however, I find it difficult to accept he wouldn’t forewarn you of the state of things in Westeros. How else could he help you plan your conquest of the Six Kingdoms?”

“Six kingdoms?” Daenerys Targaryen blinked. “The Iron Throne rules over _seven_ kingdoms.”

“It did. For three hundred years, House Stark honoured its oaths to the Iron Throne. Until the cost of fealty proved too high. The price of our freedom from the iron Throne was paid in fire and blood,” Jon said, and Lord Tyrion’s lips twitched toward a smile as Jon used the Targaryen words against her. “From the time Robb Stark was named King in the North until the end of time, the North will remain a free and independent kingdom, as it was for _thousands_ of years before the first Targaryen conquest.” A bald man near Missandei gave Jon a shrewd look.

“Our Houses were allies for centuries. And those centuries were the best the Seven Kingdoms have ever known,” Daenerys Targaryen said, and Jon thought he could see a glimmer of the woman who might have inspired Tyrion Lannister to become her Hand. Her face started to soften, her eyes widening, a gentle coaxing smile on her lips. Jon saw the smile, and remembered Cersei. Remembered Larra’s back shredded, and his sister’s sluggish, pain-drenched murmur that _the Queen wanted new ribbons_ … Jon saw that smile and remembered cruelty. “Centuries of peace and prosperity, with a Targaryen sitting on the Iron Throne and a Stark serving as Warden of the North. I am the last Targaryen, Jon Snow. Honour the pledge your ancestor made to mine. Bend the knee and I will name you Warden of the North. Together, we will save this country from those who would destroy it.”

Jon stared at this Targaryen girl, this self-proclaimed Queen, frowning. What he had expected, he didn’t know… After the Night King, nothing seemed to measure up, of course, but…he hadn’t expected to be so… _disdainful_. He thought of Mance, inspiring the Free Folk; he thought of Stannis, who had abandoned his fight for the Iron Throne because he had known the true threat to Westeros came from the North…a righteous man, if poorly advised… This woman…he didn’t know. He was not impressed.

She was either poorly educated, or ignorant by choice.

“I am not beholden to my ancestor’s vows. You say you’ll _name_ me Warden of the North. The Northmen have already made me their king: The Northmen, who united to protect themselves from those who would destroy our country,” Jon said, and he couldn’t keep the scathing condescension from his own voice, that she thought a pretty face and her offer would ever touch him. He couldn’t help narrowing his eyes, and sneering softly as he continued, “And you talk of peace and prosperity under Targaryen rule: Was that when Maegor waged war for decades on the Faith Militant after taking his six Black Brides, wives he tortured and butchered? When he murdered the thousands who toiled to build the Red Keep, in order to preserve its secrets? When the Dance of the Dragons saw the country burned and broken as Targaryen fought Targaryen and their dragons bathed the Seven Kingdoms in fire? When Daemon sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to keep a hold on Dorne? When the Blackfyres rose in rebellion after Aegon the Unworthy caused discord by favouring his bastard over his trueborn son? When your father bathed good men, honourable men, in wildfire?”

As he spoke, Daenerys Targaryen’s face grew colder and colder; those Westerosi around her exchanged speaking looks, that they, too, knew their histories, and remembered. And did not respect her for ignoring the truth of the past.

“The only fair reigns of Targaryen monarchs were those of Jaehaerys the Wise and Aegon the Unlikely - Aegon built upon the laws Jaeherys wrote centuries ago, to protect the people of the Seven Kingdoms. Your Hand will tell you his father unworked everything Aegon fought for when he became Hand to your father,” Jon said, nodding respectfully to Lord Tyrion, who was _not_ his father in spite of their shared brilliance with strategy - according to Sansa. Daenerys Targaryen narrowed her eyes as she observed this indication of respect, glaring at Jon as he said, “You’ve been reading revisionist histories, Your Grace, no doubt written intended to flatter you.”

“Clearly you have no intention of flattering your rightful queen,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I might, if I had one,” he said bluntly, and Daenerys Targaryen’s face leeched of expression. The Queen of Thorns exchanged a smirk with the sultry Dornishwoman across the chamber. “I will not apologise for wounding your pride, Your Grace: I will do whatever I must to protect the people of the North. No Northman will ever kneel to a Targaryen again… Will you burn my people to get what you want?”

The bald man draped in unusual robes flicked his gaze from the Queen to Jon, giving him a measuring, thoughtful look, before glancing at the Hand of the Queen, who was wincing thoughtfully, but staring at Jon as if mesmerised.

“Surely you did not come all this way to insult me.”

“You can take my truth as you wish, Your Grace. You wage war on Cersei Lannister, on the Iron Throne: The North has declared its independence _from_ the Iron Throne, and will defend it - no matter who sits on the Throne,” Jon said, with a fierce bite. “If you truly wish the best for all the people of Westeros, as your people claim, you would be wise to begin your conquest by respecting the sovereignty of House Stark over the North, from Hard Home to the Neck, from Skagos to Cape Kraken. Devote your time to those in the south who _do_ need you. You came to Westeros to war against monsters; don’t take the North from just rulers for the sake of your pride.”

If Daenerys Targaryen could have snarled in anger without it looking undignified for a Queen with a trailing name, Jon supposed she might have. If she might have exposed her teeth as a threat, she would have.

Her reception of him, and her reaction to him, told Jon all he needed to know.

She was here to take the Iron Throne, and would not stop until she had it, and everything she believed belonged to it - including the North.

Daenerys Targaryen would destroy anyone who stood in her way…no matter that they were defending their home, their people - from her.

He sighed heavily, glancing around the chamber.

“It’s been a long journey, Your Grace,” he said, tiredly but politely. “I request food and drink for myself and my men.”

“You did not bring your own?” was the cold, tart reply.

“Oh, I’ve supplies enough on my ship, if your army overextends your own provisions,” Jon told her, meeting her eye. With a sharp, unyielding bite, Jon met her eye and challenged, “It’s guest-right I want for my men.”

“Guest-right.” Her eyes darted to Lord Tyrion, whose lips had parted, and Jon raised his eyebrows. She had to consult her Hand about _guest-right_? When he knew it was observed in Essos just as much as Westeros - even the Dothraki had their rules about weapons in their sacred city. He exchanged a grim look with Ser Davos, and saw Theon Greyjoy watching the Queen closely, exchanging a look with his sister that had Jon’s stomach aching for Larra, the way they had silently communicated with each other with such ease.

“The only common custom among Westerosi people, Your Grace, irrespective of rank or gods, honoured all the way from the most southerly point of the Arbour to the icy wastes far beyond the Wall,” Lord Tyrion explained. “Guest-right is respected by all.”

“Except the Freys,” Jon said, with a pointed look at Lord Tyrion, whose father, it was widely known, had orchestrated the massacre of the Red Wedding, without getting so much as a speck of blood on his own hands. Grimly, threateningly, Jon said, “But winter came for them.”

“To violate guest-right is to incur the wrath of the gods,” Theon Greyjoy said softly.

“Superstition.” A tight smile from the Queen, dismissive.

Jon narrowed his eyes at her. “They say you stepped into the fire with three stone eggs, and stepped from the ashes with three new-hatched dragons,” he said coldly. “And _you_ sneer at the wills of gods?”

Outside, they could hear the shrieking of the dragons. Jon glanced from the windows to Daenerys Targaryen. “Think they came into the world again to put you on a throne?”

She levelled her gaze on him, but Jon did not so much as blink. He had warred against giants, killed White Walkers, assassinated men he admired, seen his brother shot through the heart feet from him, held his lover in his arms as she died, his name mixing with the blood on her lips.

This Queen was so much more intimidating by reputation.

In person, well…

“What do _you_ think they came into the world for, Jon Snow?”

“As we speak, White Walkers lead an army of the dead upon the Wall,” Jon said quietly. He didn’t have to raise his voice: He wondered if the others had stopped breathing, the better to hear him spar with their lady. “You and Cersei Lannister are children engaged in a game, screaming that the rules aren’t fair.”

The Queen’s expression turned colder. She glared at her Hand. “You told me you liked this man.”

“I do.”

“In the time since he’s met me, he’s refused to call me Queen, he’s refused to bow and now he’s calling me a child.” _She sounds like one_ , Jon thought, watching her carefully. How long since anyone had denied her?

“I do not deny your rightful place on the Iron Throne, Your Grace, only your sovereignty over the Northern kingdom,” Jon corrected. And he would keep reminding them all that the North was no longer under the sovereignty of the Iron Throne. “And a king does not kneel to another monarch. I’m calling _all_ of you children, Your Grace, all of you who are engaged in the game of thrones.”

“A figure of speech, Your Grace,” Lord Tyrion said, giving Jon a careful look.

“Everyone you know, everyone we love, will die before winter’s end if we cannot defeat the enemy to the North.”

“As far as I can see, _you_ are my enemy to the North.” Cold and curt and stubborn. It was no wonder he’d heard rumours she burned what did not yield.

“I am not your enemy. Nor shall I ever be your subject. We will all - Stark, Targaryen, Dothraki, Lannister, Free Folk and Summer Islanders - be dead before winter’s end if we do not unite to fight the incursion from the True North,” Jon said vehemently. “White Walkers march against the Wall, and they will find a way to breach it. Their armies of the dead will march south and destroy the world of Men.”

“The dead,” the Queen said, her voice devoid of anything except disdain. “Is that another figure of speech?”

“The army of the dead?” Lord Tyrion frowned at Jon.

“You don’t know me well, Lord Hand, but do you think I am a liar?” the King asked, and Tyrion felt a subtle thrill at being referred to as Lord Hand - and was reminded of their shared time at the Wall. Of his advice to Jon Snow - and of his uncle’s grim words to Tyrion regarding the North. “Or a madman?”

“No, I don’t think you’re either of those things, Your Grace,” Tyrion demurred: In truth, he had a healthy respect for Jon Snow. There was a reason he had risen from steward to King in the North, and he had no dragons to do the work for him. Many of his brothers had died _beside_ him - not for him: They defended the Seven Kingdoms, and they would do it - Tyrion remembered Benjen Stark’s words - _so plump little lords like you can enjoy their summer afternoons in peace and comfort_ …

“Grumpkins and snarks, you called them, do you remember?” Jon Snow’s lips twitched with a sad sort of irony that did not touch his grim grey eyes. “You visited the Wall and spent weeks combing through rare texts in the library - you listened to my brothers’ stories about their Ranging parties… You spoke with my uncle about what lies beyond the ice.”

“I remember… He gave me an excellent nugget of wisdom handed down by your father, I recall…” Lord Tyrion said, remembering, _anything after the word ‘but’ is horse-shit_ … “He warned me I could not know what he had seen, what he had endured…”

Jon sighed heavily, gazing around the throne room. This had been Stannis Baratheon’s home for years. His daughter had been raised here. Ser Davos had served Stannis here, first as Lord of Dragonstone and then as King…

“A long while ago, now, Stannis Baratheon abandoned his claim on the Iron Throne - because he knew the greatest threat to Westeros lay beyond the Wall,” Jon said, glancing at Tyrion, who had fought Stannis’ forces at the Battle of the Blackwater, and according to Sansa, had received his scars there. “But it wasn’t the Free Folk gathered under one king for the first time in generations… He gave the Watch his ships; we headed to Hard Home to bring the Free Folk south of the Wall to safety. Some we saved; thousands died on the shores when the White Walkers came, commanding their legions.”

“Did they ride on giant spiders pale as ice?” Tyrion couldn’t help it; White Walkers were from myth and legend, and therefore comfortably far-off.

“No. Horses, my lord, icy-eyed and rotting,” Jon said solemnly. “When they breach the Wall, the North will fall first. And thousands more soldiers will be added to the White Walkers’ armies of the dead.” The King in the North levelled Daenerys Targaryen with a look, a stern Northern look that set leaders apart from the rest - the intractable, unyielding looks of men who had been forced to make horrific decisions to safeguard their people, at the cost of something very precious. “They say you’re a liberator, you want to help those who cannot protect themselves: Your dragons will help you take the Iron Throne, I’ve no doubt. But you’ll not sit long on the Iron Throne if you do not help win the war against the White Walkers.”

A moment of silence, Jon Snow’s words settling into the heart of everyone who had been brought up to dread the myths and legends of the White Walkers. It was the earnestness with which Jon Snow spoke that had such a profound effect. He spoke from the heart; he spoke with absolute truth.

And they all knew it.

“I was born at Dragonstone. Not that I can remember it. We fled before Robert’s assassins could find us,” Queen Daenerys said offhandedly, rising from her jagged throne. She gave Jon an accusing look, her tone snide as she said, “Robert was your father’s best-friend, no? I wonder if your father knew his best-friend sent assassins to murder a baby-girl in her crib?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed, and his words made them uncomfortable: “When Stannis Baratheon’s fleet approached Dragonstone to murder your remaining family, my father was in Dorne, seeking the sister Prince Rhaegar had kidnapped and raped. His sister, who died in his arms.”

Daenerys Targaryen may choose to be ignorant of the truth of the destruction of her family’s dynasty - how it had been entirely of their own making - but those gathered in her makeshift court were not: They understood the truth of the Rebellion.

The bald man with his hands lost in folds of rich fabric spoke for the first time. His voice was pleasant, clever, and devoid of any accent: “Lord Stark resigned his position as Hand of the King when King Robert sent assassins to murder you and your unborn child. On his deathbed King Robert knew Ned Stark had the right of it; Lord Stark asked preparations for your assassination be cancelled. My little birds had already flown…”

The Queen’s eyes narrowed cruelly. “Yet I lived.”

“By the will of a Northman,” Jon Snow said: He had heard enough from Tyrion on their painful walk from the quay that it was a Northman, a Mormont, who had stayed by Daenerys Stormborn’s side since her first marriage. Lord Commander Mormont’s only son.

Daenerys Targaryen ignored his quiet remark. “I spent my life in foreign lands. So many men have tried to kill me, I don’t remember their names. I have been sold like a brood mare, I’ve been chained, betrayed and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing, through all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods. Not in myths and legends. In myself. In Daenerys Targaryen.”

Jon inhaled, and let out a heavy sigh. As she had spoken, her features had morphed, eyes widening, lips thinning, colour hinting at her pale cheeks, making her look almost mad.

All he could think of was Larra. Of Sansa. Of Ygritte. Of Gilly-flower. Of Arya, and even of Lady Catelyn. He looked carefully at the other women in the room - at Lady Olenna Tyrell; at the Red Viper’s whore, Ellaria Sand - last tenuous connection to Elia Martell, who had endured torment beyond imagining; at Theon Greyjoy’s grim-faced sister, a hard captain of even harder men in a society that distrusted and abused women. He thought of Lady Lyanna Mormont; of Fat Walda Frey whom Sansa never truly spoke of, except to say she had been a kind lady undeserving of her fate - herself and her newborn son ripped apart by hounds…

Jon was not impressed. Perhaps Daenerys Targaryen believed she alone in this world was the one woman who had endured brutality, and emerged from it stronger, capable, fierce and unrelenting.

Jon thought of Sansa in her fierce new gowns, the steely glint in her pretty blue eyes - the iron beneath her beauty.

What had Sansa had, to survive unknown horrors, but her mind, her own agency?

There was a danger in believing too much in oneself, to the detriment of compassion toward others’ struggles.

He caught Theon’s eye, and knew they both thought the same thing, the same _name_. Sansa. He glanced at Lord Tyrion, and knew the Imp realised it.

Realised Jon was not impressed by this small woman with weapons of fire made flesh, and an army of savages at her command, not when Lady Mormont had led her sixty-two men into battle at the age of ten, fierce and wise far too early in her life; not when his sister had traversed the frozen North in nothing but a cloak to escape her sadistic husband, after surviving court with nothing but her wits and her courtesy; not when Gilly had been wed and bred upon by her own father, and fled, fighting off White Walkers, to protect her newborn son in the most hostile environment in the world, knowing that fleeing south meant certain death just as staying in the North did, because she had been born a wildling. Not when Jon had fought side-by-side with Karsi against the White Walkers, leader of the Free Folk in her own right, picking up the pieces after Mance’s army had been routed, protecting her people, making hard choices for their future.

“I’ve had the privilege to know many women who’ve endured all that and worse, Your Grace, with no great name to cling to, and no dragons to kill for them,” Jon said, looking down at the tiny, arrogant woman who had approached him. She had seemed larger when sat on the throne; in person, she was almost two whole feet shorter than him, and angry. She was very beautiful, yes: But Jon couldn’t look at her without seeing Sansa, and Gilly, and Lyanna Mormont, and Lady Brienne, and Larra. “As far as I can tell, the only thing that separates you from every woman in this room, in this world, is those three beasts circling the island.”

Anger twisted her otherwise pretty features. Coldly, defiantly, she almost hissed, “The world had not seen dragons for centuries until my children were born.”

Jon levelled her a look, and asked her grimly, “And what would you be without them?”


	15. Objectivity

**Valyrian Steel**

_15_

_Objectivity_

* * *

“Well?”

Only slightly startled this time, Alynore set her tiny teacup down in its delicate saucer and licked the last of the fragrant Qartheen tea from her lips, thinking quickly. Her grandmother seemed to find the moment when Alynore was at her most relaxed, unguarded, to harangue her with questions - to unsettle her, and see how Alynore responded to pressure and scrutiny.

If she could learn to outwit the Queen of Thorns in verbal sparring, Alynore supposed she would be prepared for any diplomatic situation life threw at her.

“He took command of the chamber the moment he entered it.” To her grandmother, she often said the first thing that came into her head: Firstly, Grandmother was impatient - but she always said there was no ‘wrong’ answer - they discussed Alynore’s observations, and built from there. Alynore, her grandmother was discovering, had inherited her shrewdness.

Her grandmother chuckled softly, shaking her head sadly. “He reminded me of Rickard. The Northmen have such a peculiarly recognisable presence. Of course, half of it is inherited, but Jon Snow has built his through experience. They are grim, and quiet as a breed, yes; but it’s the calmest person in the room you’d be wisest to mind, my dear.”

“He wasn’t particularly calm when he throttled Theon Greyjoy,” Alynore remarked, and her grandmother’s wizened mouth twitched.

“Bad blood, my dear; it gets the better of us all,” she warned sadly. They were here, on Dragonstone, because of bad blood - bad blood between the Cersei on the Iron Throne, and any Tyrell who had survived her. Bad blood had compelled Olenna Tyrell to ally with the _Martells_ ; together seeking out the last Targaryen. Formidable allies, allies they needed to wipe out House Lannister. The Queen’s Hand seemed to be the fiercest advocate for annihilating the Westerlands, erasing House Lannister from the tomes of history. Given the trial he had endured for regicide - the trial that had cost Dorne its favourite prince - Alynore wasn’t surprised Lord Tyrion had turned on the family that had betrayed him. “And it is never wise to come between a Stark and his sister.”

“The King is not a Stark.”

“Not in name, but he has the blood,” her grandmother mused. “More than that - he has the respect of his people - and Northerners are a _hard_ people. They are the largest and poorest realm in Westeros, constantly at war with the wildlings beyond the Wall, at war with _winter_ … Hardened, proud, fierce men are not so easily won - yet they named a bastard their king.”

“Ser Davos said the King has united Northmen with the Free Folk from beyond the Wall.” Alynore fiddled with the tiny cake in front of her: They had brought many supplies from their larders, gifts of Arbor wine from her grandmother’s Redwyne relatives, as had Prince Doran’s emissary Ellaria Sand. The Queen had brought strange, exotic delicacies from Meereen and Volantis and even Qarth, and graciously shared some of them, perhaps as hints and enticement of the treats that could be expected when she sat on the Iron Throne and her empire spanned from Westeros all the way to Dragons’ Bay. She wondered whether fear or awe compelled people to provide tribute to Daenerys Targaryen’s conquest: Give her treats and move her on, before she set her greedy dragon’s eyes on their hoards of treasure. “Jon Snow allied _with_ his enemies, and brought them under his protection… They say wildlings advise him in council, just as Northmen and Knights of the Vale do… Daenerys Stormborn freed slaves and conquered Dothraki…but she either abandoned them in economic distress or brought them across the world to make war for her…”

“Interesting, isn’t it, that a woman who proclaims to be devoted to peace and prosperity seeks to enforce it with open war,” Lady Olenna smiled ironically. It didn’t reach her watery blue eyes, which were shrouded now with constant grief. “Jon Snow took a great gamble coming here; was he particularly wise, do you think, in doing so? Why did he not send an emissary?”

“If what he says is true - and the Lord Hand seems to trust Jon Snow’s earnestness, even if he doesn’t believe in White Walkers…” Alynore began thoughtfully. Lord Tyrion was drunk and oozed irony most of the time - Grandmother said he was a great deal more interesting now that he was intent on preserving his still-living body in alcohol - but when he was sincere, even if he was absolutely slaughtered from drink, they knew he was being serious. And Lord Tyrion respected Jon Snow, King in the North. It hadn’t escaped the Westerosi present in Queen Daenerys’ court that Lord Tyrion had from the very beginning and without fail addressed Jon Snow as Your Grace. He respected Jon Snow’s position even if the Targaryen queen refused to. And they found themselves following the Hand’s example. Alynore herself was not…delighted with the Queen’s pride. “I don’t think Jon Snow would risk an emissary’s safety by sending them; that implies he would rather risk his own life than condemn another’s by sending them into hostile territory… He values others’ lives above his own… The Queen said Jon Snow would not bow to her - and he shouldn’t; the North have reclaimed their Kingdom and named him their ruler… But he was respectful that she _is_ a Queen… He has shown respect to her position in coming in person - a King meeting with a Queen…and she was vile to him.”

She was glad of the thick, engraved stone walls to muffle their voices. Grandmother did not trust that there were not ears in the stone, listening; but the truth was, Queen Daenerys had _not_ presented herself at all well this afternoon, and even if the Spider heard their words through his little birds, Alynore wondered what the Master of Whisperers would actually tell the Queen. The Queen had set everything up with her advisors to unsettle the King in the North and get the measure of him while under pressure - emulating Grandmother’s tactics with Alynore during their lessons - but she wasn’t bright enough to realise that while she was trying to get the measure of Jon Snow, her tenuous allies were given opportunity to scrutinise and get the true measure of Daenerys Stormborn.

Alynore…wasn’t impressed.

Initially, she had been awed by the Queen’s beauty, fascinated by the intricacy of her braids, drinking in every wardrobe change, marvelling at the exquisite skill of the Queen’s dressmakers, until Grandmother’s questioning made Alynore realise that she was more impressed with the _gowns_ …than the Queen herself.

That was a problem.

The Queen’s words were very pretty: Her actions so far had failed to match them. With the benefit of her youth, her anonymity, and her non-threatening prettiness, Alynore had the freedom of the fortress and surrounding lands to investigate for herself, to overhear things, to see things others wouldn’t - she was _underestimated_ because of her youth and beauty. Over the last few weeks, she had become less and less impressed by the Queen - Alynore continued to admire her gowns, yes, but the Queen herself…disappointed Alynore. What little highborn girl hadn’t grown up yearning to go to court, in awe of the mythical Queen she heard stories of, praising her beauty and virtue and wisdom and goodness - they had been speaking of Cersei in Alynore’s youth yet it was directly applicable to Queen Daenerys, who was falling short of Alynore’s expectations - especially with her reputation for justice.

Alynore was starting to believe that the stories of the Queen’s _justice_ were purely based on the Queen being the _survivor_ : She had lived, therefore her version of events was told. And because she had lived, she was _right_. Therefore everything she did was good, and just… That worried her.

It worried Alynore that she had seen the Dothraki raping a girl in the quay, without repercussions: Rapers in the Reach were swiftly sent to the Wall, or cut. It concerned Alynore to see the lack of boats out fishing, to provide food for the locals to preserve for the winter. It concerned her that the Queen’s plans did not include due care for the people she had brought across the seas, who were being given no direction from their leader, struggling to adapt to the island… And Alynore, who walked with her little cousins every morning past the Dothraki camp to the little fishers’ hamlet at the coast, knew first-hand that the Queen’s adopted peoples were struggling. They did not know how to fish the seas: The island could not sustain hunting, and they had little to no experience with agriculture, especially in this climate.

Alynore knew the _theories_ behind agriculture - her House’s wealth was founded in their fields, after all - but not the practical nature of farming: She only knew gardening, a pastime her septas agreed was acceptable for a young lady, especially a lady born of House Tyrell. They were expected to take an interest in gardens: Highgarden was of course named for them, and famed throughout the world for their gardens. They were supposed to contribute. Alynore was a lover of flowers, not a farmer: But common sense told her that a starving people was a dangerous one, and the Dothraki were becoming agitated - they subsisted on horse, yet they could not risk their horses because of the Queen’s invasion. Every bloodrider needed a horse, and another to ride if the first fell: They could not spare the horses to feed their people, and were not being given the tools they needed to find alternative ways to provide for themselves…

Alynore was concerned by the atmosphere in the eerie fortress, and the Queen’s lack of warmth - Jon Snow’s reception was not outstanding in the Queen’s brittle, forced politeness: Consistently, as the Queen’s advisers engaged in battles of wits to sway her one way or another, advising patience and politics, and immediate and unrelenting assault, her impatience gave way to foul moods that set most of them on edge, waiting… Too many of the older people who had come to Dragonstone remembered the Mad King. They had witnessed his malice and his madness first-hand.

With her all-consuming focus on King’s Landing, on the Iron Throne, nothing beyond acquiring the Iron Throne, ‘ruling’ was an afterthought. Lady Olenna had been invited to sit in on the council sessions: Grandmother was not impressed that the Queen consistently refused to plan for what happened _after_ she took the Iron Throne - to think about her policies _now_ , so that implementing them would not take long, to help her establish her rule quickly, efficiently and irrevocably: Taxes, foreign trade, military pensions, justice, agriculture, religious tolerance… _Succession_.

It was constantly a worry to her Grandmother, who had left Alynore’s cousin Willas at Highgarden to implement their plans: He was the only man in the family Lady Olenna truly respected as having a hefty dose of intelligence and agency, worthy of leading their family through the greatest tragedies it had faced in generations - in spite of his crippled leg, which had done nothing to diminish his wits.

Willas was the future of House Tyrell: Alynore was the eldest surviving granddaughter of Lady Olenna, and the closest thing Willas now had to a surviving sister - she was a precious commodity, pretty and beguiling and of marriageable age - essential for alliances to secure the future of their House, of the Reach.

Queen Daenerys would not speak of the future beyond capturing the Iron Throne: And she either ignored that there was a necessity for it, or had faith that her advisors knew how to rule her people, for she had no interest in learning how to lead them. Alynore wondered whether the Queen even knew her people were bordering desperation. She didn’t know which was more unsettling - a ruler who had no interest in her people; or a ruler who trusted the prosperity of her people utterly to her advisers, lying to herself about their contentedness.

Jon Snow had come to Dragonstone because he didn’t trust that his people could come in his stead and be safe. The rumour was he had left his sister, Lady Sansa Stark, as _chatelaine_ of Winterfell, as _de facto_ Regent of the North in his absence, and according to Lord Varys’ _little birds_ , was doing a splendid job of readying the North for both winter and invasion: Jon had made provision for his people’s security even in his absence, in the possible event of his capture or execution at the hands of a foreign queen. He would not risk their lives; but had risked his to ensure theirs by asking for help against an enemy no-one believed in.

“Do you believe him?” Grandmother asked, looking her right in the eye. “Did you think he was handsome?”

“Very handsome,” Alynore admitted, her cheeks warming, fidgeting subtly under her grandmother’s smirk. And _tall_ , so deliciously tall, his dark curls cropped, his beard clipped neatly, his cheekbones sharper than his Valyrian steel sword belted at slender hips. Broad shoulders, and an implacable look so sharp, so kingly, she didn’t wonder why battle-hardened Northmen had yielded to him, why wildlings had allied with him. She had immediately liked his simple, fiercely masculine way of dressing, boiled leathers and coarse wool, thick, worn and serviceable, and barely of better quality than what his men wore - he wasn’t a man who thought much of his dress, and was certainly not a man defined _by_ his dress…

She imagined he could be dressed in rags and still, people would flock to him as their leader. She imagined he had had little better than rags as a brother of the Night’s Watch, where they flung the dregs of Westeros to be forgotten. And yet the Northmen had named him their king - not because he had acted like one, or dressed like one, or demanded they treat him like one: Because he had earned their respect as their leader.

Alynore sighed softly. “But that’s not why I think he’s telling the truth.”

“No?”

“It would be…reckless to ignore his warning. He has had a difficult life, and after all that, has come all this way to warn people, potential enemies, that their lives are in danger,” she said earnestly, gazing at her grandmother. Jon Snow was either stupid or the most unselfish person she had ever met. “Not because he has anything to benefit from it; he came because it is right that everyone who can be warned to do something about it can.”

“Starks have never historically been _scheming_ by nature but they are brutally honest,” Lady Olenna mused. “It would be far more comfortable to sneer and brush off his warnings, but -“

“He’s come all this way, knowing he’d likely be murdered on the spot,” Alynore said softly, and her grandmother nodded.

“And yet he’s here, just the same,” Lady Olenna said softly. “Starks have always been righteous; one would think them frightfully dull. But I must say I rather enjoyed watching him ruffle feathers in the throne room.” Her grandmother chuckled, eyes twinkling impishly.

“What does Ellaria Sand have to say about him?”

“Nothing very much of consequence, only that her paramour had journeyed beyond the Wall. According to Prince Oberyn the Free Folk are a people more ferocious and unpredictable than the Dornish,” Lady Olenna said, waving her hand enigmatically. “For Jon Snow to have allied them with the Northmen, their most bitter enemies…”

“That takes strength of character,” Alynore said softly, fiddling with her many, delicate little gold rings. Grandmother watched the dragons keening and whirling in the air beyond their windows; they were always flying, and Alynore wondered if they were joyous to be home - more joyous than their _mother_. Perhaps they sensed they were home, on this volcanic island. She wondered briefly where Daenerys Targaryen had come across three dragon-eggs; the rumour was the last in Westeros had perished in the Tragedy of Summerhall when Aegon the Unlikely died with most of his family, and Prince Rhaegar was born. “Do you think she’ll kill him?”

“Oh, she still believes she’s a woman and queen of immaculate morals,” Grandmother sniffed derisively, waving her hand; the large blue stone, a turquoise, glowed on her finger, stark against the rich black brocade Lady Olenna was wrapped up in. “And she has two good eyes in her head; rumour has it she likes them tall, dark and handsome. She’ll be in heat for the King in the North.”

“Grandmother!” Alynore wrinkled her nose, as her grandmother smirked.

“Save your blushes, my dear,” Grandmother chuckled. “If I were younger…”

“If you were younger, none of this unpleasantness would have happened,” Alynore said, with the conviction of youth. She knew her Grandmother well: And had Olenna warred with Cersei in her prime, the lioness of Lannister would have been annihilated. More than that, Westeros would have prospered, and perhaps risen from the backwards reputation it had suffered for centuries as great city-states like Braavos rose from the swamps and Qarth reigned eternal. Westeros had stagnated.

“It would have been quite something, to challenge Cersei, as I was in my prime,” Grandmother mused.

“You’re still a force to be reckoned with,” Alynore smiled sadly. Less so, since Baelor: Something had fractured irrevocably in her grandmother’s spirit. She was…fragile, in a way Alynore had never viewed her grandmother as vulnerable. “Has the Spider whispered anything about Cersei, and what she intends for the Reach?”

Grandmother cocked her head to one side, her pleated veil swishing silently over her shoulder, and eyed Alynore shrewdly. She pushed her large turquoise ring around her finger thoughtfully, rubbing the stone with her thumb. “What would you do? If you were in Cersei’s position? Facing treason and invasion?”

“Treason? If Daenerys Targaryen wins we shall be celebrated for our defection, the last of the Tyrells, who fought to dethrone a tyrannical queen…” Alynore said gloomily. _If_ the Queen’s conquest was successful. She had been thinking about what happened next ever since Grandmother whisked her away from Highgarden to act as lady-in-waiting and confidante, to be tutored at her grandmother’s elbow in the arts of diplomacy. “As the Starks say, _winter is coming_. If I were Cersei, and I knew there was an army ready to invade, I would…take all the food, or access to it, at least. Starve everyone else to the point of capitulation and compliance, to feed my armies.”

“The Reach, then; she will set her eyes on the breadbasket of Westeros,” Grandmother sighed, nodding. “Your cousin believes the same.”

“Could our men stand against the Lannister army?” Alynore asked dubiously. The Tyrells were famous for their pageantry, not their strategy. During the Rebellion they had fought for the Targaryens - for Rhaegar - and relied heavily on the military brilliance of their bannerman Lord Randyll Tarly. Alynore hoped her cousin Willas had thought to approach the proud lord. He was an unpleasant man, but he knew strategy.

Lady Olenna sighed heavily: She was in no way ignorant of their family’s pitiful military strength. With Loras dead, the great hope of their family for a warrior was gone: Willas was cleverer, but crippled - their bannermen would not respect him as they should for his brilliance, because he could not sit a horse beside them and lead them on the battlefield. “In favourable conditions, we might have a very slender chance of beating them back. At least long enough for Daenerys Targaryen’s forces to break a siege.”

“Then why are the Queen’s forces not marching to Highgarden, laying siege to the Rose Road?” Alynore asked grimly, and her grandmother’s face crinkled expressively, her eyes twinkling.

“Why not, indeed,” she said softly. Alynore narrowed her eyes at a truly reprehensible thought.

“They won’t take prisoners this time, will they?” she said softly. In blowing up the Sept of Baelor, Cersei had crossed a line. In declaring herself Queen as the pit still smouldered, her son’s body lying broken at the foot of the Red Keep, she had sent a message to all of Westeros, all the world. Cersei had been playing the game for years; now she was setting the terms. She had nothing to lose, now: Her two sons were dead, one in her arms, one by his own choice, and her daughter resided in peace and tranquillity in the Water Gardens of Dorne, never to return to her mother’s embrace while Prince Doran and the Sand Snakes and every Dornishman lived to remember their beloved Prince Oberyn.

“No. Cersei declared to all when she blew up the Sept of Baelor that she places no value in hostages,” Grandmother said quietly. “She will see this out, to whatever end.”

“To whatever end,” Alynore echoed sadly. She was acutely aware at all times that she sat by her grandmother’s side, conversing with her as student and heiress, because her cousin Margaery was gone: Otherwise she would have been left to live out her days as another wallflower in the rose-garden, pretty to look upon but indistinguishable from all the others. There were too many Tyrells.

 _Had been_ too many Tyrells.

Alynore glanced at her grandmother. “Are they underestimating her viciousness?”

“The Queen’s advisors? I do not believe so,” Grandmother mused, “however it is one thing to be a brilliant strategist with the benefit of intimately knowing your enemy, and being a proud young thing set against listening to anyone’s advice but your own.”

“She’s ignoring their counsel,” Alynore sighed.

“They give insight, and Lord Tyrion has foresight,” Grandmother sighed heavily, shaking her head, “yet in spite of all warnings, the Targaryen girl has come this far without educated men such as these to guide her, and been triumphant.”

“She _burned_ everyone else, that’s why,” Alynore sniffed, and her grandmother gave her an arch look. “She has no diplomacy.”

“Oh, none whatsoever. She was not raised by them, but she is every inch a Targaryen,” Grandmother smirked nastily. “Hostile, entitled, totalitarian. And utterly, _utterly_ convinced in their gods-given rights to conquer, to inflict their will upon those lesser than themselves. She reminds me of her father, in the beginning.”

“What was he like, before the madness?”

“Oh, I am sure the potential was always there, Duskendale only enhanced it,” Grandmother said, frowning thoughtfully. “He was clever, but erratic. Lacked commitment, above all things. Excellent ideas, no grit to see them executed. Lord Tywin ensured the realm did not suffer, as the king flitted from idea to idea, never settling, never satisfied. He was charming, though, in the beginning. As this queen is charming. But dangerous. You never forgot that Aerys was the king. As she will not allow us to forget she is the Dragon Queen.”

Alynore frowned out of the window, as the green dragon soared past. Terrifying as they were, she could not deny they had a certain awing majesty. “She relies on them.”

“Mm… And what is she without them?” Grandmother asked, echoing Jon Snow. Her pale eyes were twinkling, and she was smirking - she looked almost like her old self, like the sharp-tongued grandmother Alynore remembered.

“You liked him,” Alynore realised, and her grandmother chuckled.

“He is blunt and earnest and it was a delight to see that proud little girl soundly smacked,” Grandmother said, smiling. “I’m not surprised the King in the North is unimpressed by the girl’s monologue…not after everything his family has suffered, all his sister has endured.”

“What was Sansa Stark like?” Alynore asked: She had never set foot at court, never seen Lady Sansa, but her cousins had said she was beautiful. Lady Olenna did not speak for many moments; she rubbed her thumb over her turquoise, her watery blue eyes faraway.

“She survived Cersei,” Grandmother said softly, and Alynore watched her face, reading her expression. Grief, yes: Sansa Stark had accomplished a feat not even Margaery, for all her beauty and brilliance, could pull off. Grief, yes, for Margaery, and their family’s loss: but also respect, for the girl Lady Olenna Tyrell had underestimated.

The Queen of Thorns wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“We were all so distracted by the vulnerable, tragic beauty and her courtesies, we never saw the wolf-pelt bristling beneath the petals,” Lady Olenna said poetically, but her face fell, grief-stricken, earnestly bemused. Lady Olenna sighed. “Now the she-wolf has been sharpening her claws.”

“Could a wolf kill a lion in combat, do you think?” Alynore asked.

“Oh, certainly,” Grandmother said, waving an impatient hand. She added shrewdly, “A wolf never hunts alone.”

“How does a steward of the Night’s Watch become King in the North?” Alynore wondered aloud. The Queen’s titles told her story: Jon Snow was King in the North, and that was that. It left everyone wondering who he was. It left them curious, _wanting_ … Whatever Jon Snow’s journey had been, it would be utterly unique. After the exhibition in the throne room, Alynore thought she had the measure of the Queen - and of Jon Snow. “Jon Snow was right; nearly every woman on this island has endured the same and worse than the Queen. Jon Snow’s story seems worth hearing.”

“Then ask him to tell it, though I’d wager he’ll be reluctant. Northmen are men of few words,” Lady Olenna smirked. She sighed, shaking her head. “They say the Young Wolf was wise beyond his years…he certainly had strategy, brutalising the old lion across the Riverlands, snaring the golden one… Those boys were raised together.”

“They were brothers.”

“One was a bastard. Lady Catelyn was a proud cow. They were brothers; Jon Snow was threat to her son’s inheritance,” Lady Olenna said, shaking her head. “One wonders how the fate of House Stark might have been shaped had Jon Snow been left behind as castellan of Winterfell as Robb Stark marched to war.”

“Likely he would have been skewered by Ironborn,” Alynore sighed. “They leave no man behind who could ever raise a weapon against them.”

“Happily for Alarra Snow she was no man,” Grandmother quipped.

“But she died anyway,” Alynore said softly, thinking of the pain and fury in Jon Snow’s eyes when he had spoken of his twin-sister. Alynore had never been to the North, never even seen snow, but the wandering crows told stories of the Night’s Watch and the True North beyond the Wall, and she knew the King’s twin-sister had died beyond it in frozen wastes, forgotten.

She couldn’t help wonder, briefly, what would happen to the Night’s Watch now that the North had allied with the wildlings. If Jon Snow wasn’t lying, and the White Walkers weren’t just figments from legend…this was what the Watch had been created for - not to keep away savage men, but to keep away true monsters. What if they were real; what if they could be defeated, with all allied Westeros… What then?

Alynore wondered if Jon Snow had thought that far ahead. If he had allowed himself the luxury of thinking there was even a glimmer of hope that they _may_ survive monsters from legend…if he planned ahead. What provision could he make for the survivors of the Night’s Watch, who had known nothing but honour and service and deprivation in the name of doing what was right.

Had Jon Snow thought it out? Had he sat with his sister, _chatelaine_ and heiress of Winterfell, of the North, and worked out what happened next - every possible outcome? How did they best secure the future of their people, and how did alliances forged in the fires of true terror affect those decisions? What would become of the wildlings _after_? Had he thought about the economy of the North, poor and largely left to itself, scratching meagre livings off rocks? Grandmother said Northmen were _prudent_ : They lived off what they had, and thanked their old gods for even that much. They were…in shocking contrast to the pageantry and frivolousness of the Reach: Their cultures were absolutely opposite.

And Alynore made up her mind to discover how Jon Snow had become King in the North; and what made him worthy of the crown, and how - or whether - he would continue to earn it.

Because gifts given could always be snatched away.

There was no security.

The Red Wedding had taught them that, long before Baelor had.

“How will the Hand and Lord Varys advise, do you think?” Alynore asked her grandmother, who sat in on the council meetings, though refused an official place in the Small Council until Daenerys had claimed the Iron Throne. The contention between warmongering Lord Tyrion and the more diplomatic stance of Lord Varys was well-known by now: They had enjoyed working together to thwart common enemies to protect King’s Landing from Baratheon invasion and Northern aggression, and were friends, Alynore thought, but advising the Queen was different entirely. They were not _protecting_ : They were _conquering_. One coaxed for minimal loss of life and diplomacy, cleverness and caution, patience: the other championed wholesale slaughter and destruction to ensure that every trace of the disease that was Cersei Lannister was burned from the land, from the very pages of history.

“Interestingly, Lord Tyrion may champion Jon Snow. They have a past friendship, and a sense of mutual respect,” Lady Olenna mused.

“But allying with Jon Snow would divert their cause from the Iron Throne,” Alynore countered, and her grandmother’s eyes twinkled as she shifted, turning herself toward Alynore more fully, the better to look her in the face, as her Grandmother liked to say, to see the whites of her eyes. “It is more likely Lord Varys will champion his cause, when helping the North defeat its enemy could cement allies in Westeros. The Queen needs Westerosi allies, allies in a position of strength. The Starks are reasserting their strength.”

“A feat none thought possible after the Red Wedding,” Lady Olenna said softly. Her eyes were strained, pained, when she smiled at Alynore. “A lesson to us all.”

“She won’t want to help. Her pride is wounded. She’s come here to save Westeros and the Starks have already saved the North for themselves and their people,” Alynore said. “They wouldn’t have named Jon Snow their king if they didn’t believe in him… She came expecting to be wanted, and needed; the North doesn’t need her.”

“Oh, they need her armies,” Lady Olenna waved a hand. “Lord Tyrion will see they are not committed to any cause but destroying his sister utterly.”

“Do you think it is possible she might actually try and earn his respect?” Alynore asked. “Daenerys, I mean. I don’t believe she’s used to not impressing other people. Jon Snow wasn’t at all impressed by her.”

“He didn’t embarrass himself by panting at her heels, you mean,” Lady Olenna snickered. “Oh, she’s used to men becoming cunt-struck at the sight of her, the thought of bedding her… Night’s Watchmen take no wives, and father no children; they live their lives for a cause greater than their own… They are used to deprivation, to making the hard choices. They are of that rare breed who are trained not to think with their cocks, in spite of having full use of them.”

“The North can’t afford for him to yield to her,” Alynore said, and her grandmother nodded.

“So he shan’t.” Lady Olenna’s eyes twinkled viciously. “It shall be entertaining to watch the tables turned on Daenerys Stormborn. She’s never met a man who hasn’t wanted her; never met one she could not bend to her will.”

“She’d never met a Northman.”

Even in the Reach, the stubbornness and honour of Northmen was legendary. Jon Snow was the last of the Starks to engage in the game of thrones, for the sake of survival and honour - Alynore wondered if he was following in the footsteps of Lord Cregan Stark, who ended the Dance of Dragons during the Hour of the Wolf, defining the Targaryen dynasty by championing and crowning King Aegon III… She imagined he had been warned against coming south, against following the footsteps of his grandfather Rickard Stark, the man whose fiery execution beside his son had sparked the Rebellion.

The Starks had historically had the power to make or break the Targaryen dynasty.

She hoped Daenerys Targaryen realised it would be in her benefit to make a friend of Jon Snow.


	16. Home

**Valyrian Steel**

_16_

_Home_

* * *

They stopped at every holdfast and hamlet, helping those who struggled to leave their homes due to the snow, sickness or recalcitrance. The column kept moving, herding cattle, swaddling newborns delivered in the fiercest snowstorms in centuries. Bran guided them, and direwolves guarded them from worse monsters. More died on the journey: Any who fell were burned where they landed. It was a relief, as much as it was tragic: Fewer to fight the winter, but also fewer to feed through the winter.

It was well into their fifth week of travel when she saw it. It wasn’t the snow whirling around them thickly that disoriented them, reducing everything to indistinguishable dark shapes; it was the howling winds. This winter had long threatened to be the worst in living memory. She had seen the eye of the storm to come; it would be. The storms had been getting more and more violent as the weeks passed: She had endured worse, north of the Wall - but anyone who had looked the Night King in the eye would brace against this storm, and realise…his power was growing, his influence over the elements strengthening. Whatever power the Children had bequeathed so foolishly to their creation was building once again: All Man could do was weather it out. Fight. Survive. Rebuild. And remember.

The Wall still stood: Regardless, winter chased at their heels. Larra, who would never forget the unfeeling malice, the pure intent in the Night King’s eyes, kept driving them further, faster: She had empathy for those who struggled but if they sank back into the snows to wail and catch their breaths, they were lost - she would have been taken by the storm years ago. She couldn’t afford to look back.

But then she saw it. There was a break in the storm, the iron-grey clouds parting briefly to shine meagre silver light on the snow-strewn landscape, the sky brightening as the snow gentled, and the wind died. The world became still, breathless almost. And she knew where she was. Intimately.

Their path wended alongside a river, unfrozen even in these storms; it was fed by hot-springs, the same as piped hot water through the walls of Winterfell, the same that fed the pool in the godswood where Father cleaned his sword under the heart-tree, watching the water ripple. In winter, steam rose from the churning water, so thick it looked like fog. Everywhere around the water, around the stream, the ice had melted, the snow did not stick; animals crept to the water’s edge, and high above, in ancient trees bowing their limbs toward the water, tiny dew-kissed buds ready to unfurl into fresh green leaves, were dire-eagles. Hundreds of them, ink-eyed and half as tall as an Umber, a coronet of tufted feathers around its head, talons like meat-hooks and incredible stormy plumage of greys and whites making it perfect camouflage for the winter - for hunting. Hundreds of them, waiting in the trees, watching carefully. It unnerved most who noticed them, made the hairs stand up at the back of their necks. The dire-eagles couldn’t care less that thousands of Men wandered past their hunting-grounds: They had easier prey in mind.

Larra knew this place. It was her favourite place outside Winterfell, and Father had told her stories about the river that defied even winter itself. Maester Luwin had called the phenomenon - of the unfrozen river in winter, a thriving haven to wildlife in one of the harshest places in the world - a _microcosm_ : a meticulously-balanced ecosystem within another, larger environment. In the heart of winter, predator and prey would gather near the water: The eagles waited for Man to pass by, so they could return to their fishing. The river churned not with rapids but with _salmon_ that had spawned during the autumn. The direwolves scented the area as they padded past, marking territory and familiarising themselves with fresh scents the snow had hidden from them for leagues. Larra could see where deer had stripped the bark from trees close to the water’s edge, where the steam had thawed the ice.

Father used to theorise that Brandon the Builder had chosen to build Winterfell where he had because he had likely been following the river, where he and his people could survive the harshest winters. Once, Larra’s ancestors had lived like the Free Folk, migratory, following their food-supply, chasing warmth: It was Brandon who set down stone and built a great keep, using curiously advanced irrigation to pipe hot water from the rivers through its walls to keep the bite of winter at bay.

She marvelled in the river, the first time in her life she had ever seen it in the heart of winter, pure and bare and extraordinarily beautiful, those thousand birds perched patiently, steam drifting in a gentle breeze that started to whistle as their path wended away from the water, through thicker woodlands, and as the last eagle disappeared from her view, Larra glanced around, identifying markers she used to use when hunting, familiar and yet not because the winter had stripped everything she knew from her memory. She sat up straighter in her saddle. She dug her heels into Black Alys’ sides. Edd called to her, his voice tinged with concern. She ignored him. And rode on ahead, weaving her way through the column, past smallfolk on foot and carts laden with grain and meat, wagons full of children and nursing mothers, skirting around herds of cattle, leaving them all behind.

The river wended to the left; she followed an ancient path to the right, curving around and up a steep hill that had forever created natural fortifications for Winterfell - the same natural fortification that had cost King Stannis Baratheon his campaign when he led the assault against Ramsey Bolton. It left attackers blind to Winterfell’s advancing cavalry or infantry, gave the armies precious moments to ready themselves and either be waiting to slaughter, or sneak around the rises and take advancing enemies unawares from behind, using the ancient wolfswood as protection. Yes, Brandon the Builder had been canny indeed when he chose to lay the foundations for Winterfell where he had.

Larra crested the hill.

There it was.

 _Home_.

Nestled comfortably and conspicuously among the flawless white moors: Winterfell.

Even from her vantage, Larra could see the vibrant, violent red of the weirwood heart-tree dominating the ancient, sprawling godswood.

Her heart cracked, and she stared at her home in grief and stunned disbelief - she was home. There and back again… The last time she had seen the heart-tree…she had been sobbing into Maester Luwin’s bloodied grey robe, a part of her heart withering and dying as the life-blood seeped from that marvellous man, her hands shaking as she gripped the coarse material of his cowl, the sting of metal cold against her hands as his heavy chain clinked against her fingers, and his spindly hands trembled as he rested them on her shoulders, raising her face in his hands, stroking her tear-stained cheeks with his thumbs, as he had thousands of times before. His kind, lined face had been drawn in pain and anguish - at his parting from them - and he made her promise…protect her brothers… ” _You’re the only one who can_ …”

Tears pooled hotly in her eyes, and stung her cheeks as they slipped down her wind-bitten skin, gazing at Winterfell, her memories an onslaught as devastating as any army cresting the invisible rise ahead.

Black Alys snorted and stamped impatiently, but Larra didn’t respond, blinded by tears, by ghosts, trying to catch her breath as she stared at her home. She never thought to see it again.

She shoved the tears from her eyes, sniffing, and focused on the horizon, on Winterfell. The moors were not unblemished, she realised, squinting in the snows that had returned, more gently than they had been most of their journey, delicate kisses whispering against her skin, as if nature itself was trying to soothe her, to say, “Welcome home. We’ve missed you.”

A haze of dark smoke lingered like a dense blanket over Winter’s Town, rising up to from the moors past the South Gate, busier even from a distance than Larra had ever known it: All of the North had gathered to Winterfell to endure the storm, and the town had been built for the occasion. Banners flew high over the grey stone buildings, whipping and snapping in the wind, colours whitewashed from ice and snow but still recognisable due to the rich dye pigments and designs. Many familiar Northern banners, but some unusual ones - unusual in that they flew over Winter’s Town at all: Corbray, Belmore, Melcolm, Hunter, Templton, Egen. Valemen. Lesser lords from the Riverlands: Blackwood, Darry, Pyper, Mooton, Strong and Vance. Even a Tully trout, black against the blue and red Tully colours. _Brynden the Blackfish?_ she thought, slightly stunned. Lady Catelyn’s uncle - and a legendary warrior. One standard stood out, quartered with yellow suns emblazoned on rose and white crescents stark against azure blue. Tarth. How had the North secured support from the Evenstar?

Black Alys stamped her hooves and snorted, fidgeting: A smaller horse appeared in the corner of her eye - not a horse. Last Shadow. Hot breath pluming in the cold air, her night-black coat sparkling with melting snow, her inky eyes glittering with the warmth of embers as she raised her muzzle to nudge Larra’s leg. She looked Larra in the eye, and started padding away, toward Winterfell. Larra could do nothing but follow. She sniffed, wiped her face, sat up straighter in her saddle, and kept her pace slow as the rest of the column started to catch up. The sighs and chatter of exhausted people finally reaching safety was like music as it spread through the column like wildfire, relief and delight mingling with cries: They had made it.

 _You made it_ , she thought to herself, a mixture of grim acceptance and wonder. _There and back again_ … She glanced over her shoulder, finding the familiar wagon where Bran was entertaining Little Jon and Ragnar with stories that would frighten even a Thenn, guarded by several direwolves and Night’s Watchmen: Edd rode ahead to meet Larra.

“You alright?” he asked, and Larra nodded mutely.

“Winter’s Town looks to be filling up,” she said. “Knights of the Vale and _Tully_ bannermen.”

“How did that happen?” Edd frowned. He had been born and bred in the Vale: As one of Jon’s greatest friends and advisors and acting Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Edd had a better picture of what had been happening throughout the rest of Westeros. The last he had been informed, the Lannisters had helped the Freys claim Riverrun, using Edmure Tully as hostage and leverage to surrender the castle without bloodshed. There were claims Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, had died in the ensuing skirmish when he refused to meet Lannister terms. He had escaped the Red Wedding, they said; Larra marvelled that his standard flew above Winter’s Town. But then…she was returning to Winterfell, after being declared dead, after surviving the True North and all the horrors of legend and nightmare.

Stranger things had happened than seasoned old warriors surviving battles.

“We shall soon find out,” Larra murmured, and Edd nodded, his eyes on the horizon, squinting through the gentle snows.

“I’ll spread the word. Bannermen ride on ahead to the castle; everyone else settle in at Winter’s Town,” Edd said, and Larra nodded her agreement; he turned his horse around and trotted off, to pass orders along the column. She let Black Alys go, trotting gently along the path carved through the snow, snowbanks eight feet high and looming over them: The path had been created by foot-traffic and wagons - ahead, she could see several carts and a flock of black-faced fluffy Northern sheep being herded by clever Northern sheepdogs. Larra was reminded fleetingly of strict Septa Mordane trying to corral boisterous Arya, as Sansa preened by the hearth with her needlework, and the thought made her lips twitch as her eyes drifted to the castle, looming ever larger, ever closer. She glanced over her shoulder, seeking out Meera’s dark curls; she must have her head covered, as Larra did, against the bitter wind that had made her ears and back of her neck throb.

Winterfell.

It was full of ghosts - some of them exquisite, filled with delight and wonder, with warmth and love and friendship. It was the others that plagued her mind now, wheedling into the crack that had appeared in her heart long ago, weeping and screaming as Theon Greyjoy butchered Ser Rodrik in the courtyard, shaking with rage and grief as the Ironborn gave up Mikken to their Drowned God… She had been bullied and nearly raped in that castle. They had hidden in the crypts like common criminals - her, and Osha and Brandon, Rickon and sweet Hodor. She had turned away as Osha unsheathed her blade to gift Maester Luwin with mercy in the godswood. Smoke had billowed from the castle itself as they strode away across the moors, headed north to find Jon and some illusion of safety, long before they had ever met the Reed siblings. Winterfell was where her family had once been whole; and where she had experienced the first of the great horrors to define the woman she had become.

Her breath came in short, sharp bursts as she drew back to match pace with Brandon’s wagon, Meera resting beside him, tired and bleak-eyed. She met Larra’s gaze, and they communicated without speaking: Not all of them had made it back to Winterfell. Osha, Hodor, Jojen, Rickon, Shaggydog… Larra didn’t need to voice her trepidation about returning, about setting foot inside the courtyard still, in her memory, soaked with Ser Rodrik’s blood, about praying to the very same heart-tree under which Maester Luwin had been given the gift of mercy, the warm halls that had turned into her prison cell, hunted by Ironborn for sport.

They were digging a deep, wide trench. The poor sods who had to dig had broken through the frozen earth, and great mounds of it were piled outside the trench, forming a rise _living_ infantry would find difficult to scale without being riddled with arrows - only to find a sudden drop and death beyond even if they survived the archers, an impassable boundary… Only a very narrow path, barely wide enough for a single wagon to pass through, had been left for access, a hundred yards to the right of the South Gate, which was being refortified with new gates made of ancient oak from the wolfswood, behind a new double-portcullis of tempered steel. _Strong_. Stronger than anything the Free Folk could ever craft.

She was gratified they were preparing: She also knew better than to think any of this would hold up against the Night King’s armies for long. A _living_ army would be deterred by the trench and fortifications, and perhaps the trebuchets, launching fiery projectiles, might put a dent in the advancing hordes…but the Night King’s armies were not living. They did not tire; they felt no fear, or pain. They did not stop. They were fodder. And utterly, utterly in the control of their commanders. They would not break ranks, they would not flee. The dead would not stop for anything. Anything but fire or obsidian…

Still - they were preparing. And Jon had fought the dead at Hard Home - and lost. Edd had been at his side, fighting alongside the Free Folk to get as many of the wildlings onto Stannis Baratheon’s ships as possible: They’d talked about it, on their journey south. Edd had seen hardened wildlings _weeping_ as the Night King raised the dead on the shores of Hard Home.

Winterfell was not Hard Home. And they were not going to be caught unawares, fractured, scattered - they had _time_ , that precious commodity. They had weapons. And they had a fierce leader supported by equally fearsome advisors and chieftains and warriors, and allies experienced in many different kinds of warfare. That combined experience, combined resources, the strength from unity…

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it,” she murmured to Edd, who glanced away from a trebuchet being pieced together by a team of rugged Northmen and Free Folk - recognisable by their furs.

“What’s that?”

“The difference it might have made, had Mance been allowed to lead the Free Folk south of the Wall,” Larra sighed. Edd nodded to himself.

“Even as I die I’ll still remember the shores of Hard Home,” he muttered, scowling in the snow. He sighed heavily. “Jon wondered the same thing, you know. We knew even as Mance Rayder marched his armies upon the Wall that the true enemy was the dead…but too few of us knew, or believed…”

“We built the Wall so we would never forget the threat,” Larra said, pulling the fur down from over her mouth so her voice wasn’t muffled. “The memories faded into myth and legend…we forgot. When we should have been afraid, and waiting.”

“Can’t help but think what we’d be doing now if Jon had never joined the Watch,” Edd said, raising his eyes to the great outer curtain wall of Winterfell.

“Strange how a single decision can alter the course of history,” Larra sighed glumly. She had always known, since they were children, that Jon would join the Watch. He was unwelcome at Winterfell, as Larra was, but he had opportunity due to his gender; and he was awed by Uncle Benjen’s stories of Ranging. These weren’t the lives either of them had imagined for themselves when they were small. Jon had joined the Watch, risen to Lord Commander, and defined the history of the Watch’s last war. The North would never forget his name.

If they survived the Long Night.

No-one stopped them as they made their way through the trench, across the narrow bridge of earth left untouched for easy access for the men working on the trebuchets; the few already constructed were launching projectiles, marking their range to improve their positioning. Carts laden with freshly-hewn tree-trunks rested beyond the trench, men working to sharpen some to savage points to embed in the trench, others to go toward more trebuchets; she grieved briefly for the wolfswood. The sacrifices they had to make if they wanted to survive.

Some of the men turned to watch, and Larra realised it was because of her - rather, because of Last Shadow, who padded silently beside Black Alys, hulking and gorgeous, bigger than any pony, lethal - and _familiar_ …

A blur of something enormous and white streaked out of the gate: Last Shadow raised her muzzle to the skies and howled with relief as Larra’s heart swelled - _Ghost_!

Brother and sister pelted toward each other, tumbling together as they met, yipping and nuzzling, scenting each other, licking each other’s muzzles affectionately, _playing_ together for the first time in years.

Men nearby backed away from the wolves, stunned and awed. Perhaps they were used to Ghost: But Lady had been killed years ago, Nymeria lost, Grey Wind butchered, and Shaggydog slaughtered. They wouldn’t know the rest of Ghost’s litter. They wouldn’t know the bond between Ghost, the albino runt of the litter, and Last Shadow, whose eyes had been open, howling adorably to Larra so they weren’t overlooked when Robb and Theon had gathered up the other pups mewling and whimpering and blindly seeking their dead mother’s milk. She still remembered Last Shadow, a tiny pup with soft down black as night and lustrous as velvet, a keen-eyed, brazen, cunning thing even as a pup as Larra taught her to hunt in the wolfswood. Larra had been so in love with watching Last Shadow grow, and learn, building on the instincts and resilience as a pup to one day survive the frozen wastes of the True North and, as a mature direwolf bitch when all her brothers and sisters were taken from her, form her own pack.

Larra handed Black Alys’ reins to Edd, and climbed out of the saddle, her legs aching, drawn to the two direwolves, as much her home as Winterfell was. Last Shadow howled her delight, and in the distance howls echoed back, each unique; the rest of the pack had stayed back from the castle, instinct warning them against coming too close. But Last Shadow knew this place…she had been drawn home…to her brother.

“Ghost,” she murmured, and the albino wolf, hulking and snow-white, fidgeted in the snow, ears twitching toward the sound of howls as Last Shadow licked his muzzle and nipped his ears. Glowing ruby eyes turned to Larra. She remembered Ghost slender and gangling and silent; before her, now, stood a beautiful strong, mature wolf, his face handsome and thoughtful and sorrowful, as if the emotion of every tragedy Jon had survived had pooled in his eyes, which were wise and sad even though they unnerved most. Some said Ghost’s eyes were the colour of blood: Larra knew they were the colour of weirwood amber, pure and vibrant.

If ever they needed confirmation that Larra and Jon were truly born of Northern stock, all anyone need do was look at Ghost, bonded so fiercely to Jon: With his weirwood-white fur and red-amber eyes, Ghost was the living embodiment of the North - of the Stark sigil and their First Men ancestry, linked so closely to the Children and the weirwoods that their devotion to heart-trees persisted in spite of invasion and conquest and beguiling new gods.

She fell to her knees in the muddy snow as Ghost approached; kneeling, he loomed over her. She didn’t see Edd ride on; or the wagon trundle past with Brandon and Meera watching from their furs. A subtle smile lifted Brandon’s sombre face as he watched Larra reunite with Ghost.

Tears slid down her face: Silent as she always remembered him, Ghost licked the tears from her face, so, so tenderly. His clever, sad eyes examined her face, remembering, recognising; he tucked his muzzle under her chin, chuffed gently, and licked her face, her ears. His thick fur warmed her exposed skin as tears slid down her face, tickling her chin; her body shuddering with sobs, her eyes burning from tears, she looped her arms around his neck and hugged him, hugged Ghost, as much a part of her brother as Last Shadow was a part of her. She buried her face in Ghost’s fur, his warmth seeping into her, his musty familiar scent soothing her, filling her with extraordinary memories to chase away the nightmares, memories of Shaggydog jumping out at them in the crypts; of Grey Wind and Summer tearing across the moors as Bran whooped and yelled in his new special saddle; of Last Shadow’s self-satisfied lick of Larra’s face after she brought down the stag Theon had been itching to successfully hunt for months; of Nymeria and Lady play-fighting and licking each other lovingly in the godswood as Last Shadow taught Shaggydog how to stalk their sisters; of Summer contentedly licking the cutthroat’s blood from his paws as Bran slept on; of Shaggydog and Summer cuddling with her brothers in the abandoned holdfast as they waited out a storm, warm and for the moment safe, the worst horrors behind them as far as they had known then, sleeping peacefully.

Ghost raised his paw, landing it heavily on her back, wriggling in her arms; his tail was wagging when she opened her eyes, raising her wet face from his fur. He snorted gently, his breath pluming in the air, gazed at her with those red-amber eyes, and gently licked the last of her tears away.

“You’ve been looking after him, haven’t you,” she moaned, her smile tremulous as Ghost’s tail started wagging again, and she raised her hand to stroke his face lovingly. He sniffed at her fingers, licked them, and gave them a brief, sharp, not unpleasant nip of affection. She gulped back more tears, wiping her face on her furs, and rose on weak knees, her fingers trembling as she grasped the hilt of her sword for something solid to hold onto; Last Shadow and Ghost prowled beside her, brother and sister on either side, as she approached the gate on foot. People moved out of the way for her - for her, and the direwolves.

Contentment, relief, swept through her for the first time in ages, Ghost and Last Shadow walking so close they bumped against her as they walked, matching pace, their heat radiating through her. She let her fingers trail through their thick fur as they walked. She knew Jon had gone south to meet with Daenerys Targaryen; but Ghost was here. Part of Jon was _here_. She followed the happy chatter and the sound of excited, contented people working hard, not pausing to reflect on the shiver that passed down her spine as high stone walls seemed to close in on her, unfamiliar shadows looming overhead - she had become unaccustomed to great stone structures, to castles and courtyards and looming towers. She had become used to the caves under the weirwood; to the open, endless grey skies; to the bare skeletons of trees whipping and cracking in brutal winds. For the briefest moment, she felt as if she was being crushed.

Then she saw the Stark banners hanging from the walls, grey direwolf against a pure snow-white landscape, and calm seemed to suffuse her body, her lungs cracking open to take in the cool air, the warmth of the direwolves at either side soothing her ragged nerves. She focused on the hum of activity, the anvils singing in Mikken’s great forge, the women clustered around open fires weaving baskets, old men fletching arrows and carving bowls and spoons, orphans helping wizened women prepare food in cauldrons hoisted over great fires.

The smallfolk of Winterfell were preparing for war. And yet they were _happy_.

They knew war was coming, but could not comprehend how devastating things would soon be: They were content to know that the Starks had returned to Winterfell, reclaiming the North - Starks were once again taking care of their people.

She heard the soft murmurings, the singing of women and the chatter of busy, contented people, the hacking of axes and chiming of hammers against anvils, heard the gasps as she relished the sight of her father’s sigil hanging from the walls once more, and her eyes flicked down to waist-height as she entered through a small gateway, where a new oak door banded with steel stood flanked by two freshly-hewn direwolf statues. She knew they were freshly-hewn: Generations of Starks had worn down the ears and noses of the direwolf statues guarding the entrance to the crypts as they passed their fingers over the fearsome effigies, each time they descended the age-worn steps into the ancient crypts, the burial-place of their ancestors…their brothers and sisters… Her mother.

Her mother rested beneath the courtyard flagstones. She had rested, in peace, with her brother and father, visited often by Ned, who held vigil over her, lighting her candles and bringing her flowers, bringing light and warmth and perfume to the dank crypts…

Larra glanced away from the entrance to the crypt and entered the courtyard, noticing a grim-faced man in a billowing yellow cape, Free Folk in their furs, and a shrewd-looking girl with the Mormont bear on its hind legs emblazoned on her leather breastplate, watching the people clustered around a wagon. Brandon’s sombre face turned to gaze at her, smile benign, and Edd’s sharp features creased in a contented smile as he leaned against the back of the wagon, watching Meera talk earnestly to a tall woman in a heavy, rich cloak. Meera’s eyes darted from the woman to Larra and back; Edd grinned over at Larra, his shrewd eyes alight with anticipation. A hush fell over the courtyard, people staring, parting to allow Larra and the direwolves through the throng of gathered nobles and smallfolk and knights and Free Folk.

The woman in the rich cloak had her lustrous red hair neatly plaited from her face and braided, coiled into a thick bun, the Northern hairstyle known as the “crown” adopted by every noblewoman north of the Neck, waves of copper shimmering over the thick wolf-pelt draped over her shoulders. Her profile was elegant as she turned; a long, slender nose, pretty rosebud lips and short, thick eyelashes. Blue eyes like the skies of the spring of Larra’s childhood, damp from shock and relief. Those blue eyes landed on Larra, and the Lady of Winterfell stumbled back, her lips parting, tears streaming down her face in shock, her face grief-stricken, heart-broken.

Larra stared at her sister. Gone was the delicate, petty young girl in softly-hued princess dresses, fussing over her embroidery and her braids; gone the courteous, sharp-tongued girl who cared more for poems and pageantry than appreciating her siblings. Gone the young lady who walked on air, her head full of songs and her heart full of dreams.

It had been the easiest thing in the world to forget, beneath the weirwood, that time was indeed still passing; until she looked at Sansa and felt the blow to her stomach as if kicked in the chest by a mule. Sansa was a woman now.

As a girl she had been pretty, promising great beauty: As a woman, with a steely glint in her blue eyes and her chin raised in defiance even as shock rendered her unsteady on her feet and gulping back tears, she was magnificent. Tall and stately, poised: She radiated strength and an unfamiliar confidence, a sternness that maintained the respect of those around her, even as she was reduced to tears. There was a cold, hewn sombreness to her face now, older and wiser and harsher.

For the first time in her life, Larra thought Sansa looked… _Northern_.

She was shrouded in a thick brocade cloak lined with fur, the fine wolf-pelt on her shoulders glistening in the pale light, her hands concealed by fine leather gloves, and beneath the folds of her cloak, Larra saw the familiar sheen of fine tooled leather and the shimmer of heavy skirts. Larra recognised the fabric, charcoal and onyx patterned with silvery steel-grey crosses. Beneath the clasps of her cloak, two silver direwolves pinned an exquisitely-embroidered high double-collar in place; a silver chain tinkled as Sansa moved, draped around her throat, dangling to her waist, ending with something small and dagger-like that glinted in the light.

Larra had the time to take in the details of her sister’s appearance as Sansa strode toward her, her eyes filled with tears, unblinking as she drank in Larra’s appearance. Hers was not as magnificent, she knew, but she raised her chin and met Sansa’s tear-filled eyes as her own burned, stunned by this stern beauty advancing on her, a smile breaking through as Sansa choked and threw herself at Larra, knocking her off-balance, embracing her.

Stunned. She was stunned. Too stunned to hug back immediately; but she blinked, and hot tears fell down her cheeks, and she found her arms wrapping themselves around Sansa tightly as Sansa shook against her.

She had never been embraced like this by Sansa…like a _sister_.

As an equal. As someone Sansa _loved_.

She hugged back fiercely, her eyes burning as tears streamed down her face, and Sansa shook in her arms, and Larra remembered that this was still her little sister, and that little girl in airy princess gowns was gone for a reason. Suffering had tempered her sister’s nature; and Sansa Stark was stronger for the pain, the resilience she had come upon through experience.

Her little sister. A grown woman, stern and unyielding as any she-wolf who had come before her. Beautiful.

Larra hugged her sister, as Sansa wept into her shoulder, shaking. Her little sister. Home. They were home. She panted, and sighed, and relaxed into her sister’s embrace as she held her sister upright, the fragrance in Sansa’s soft hair beguiling her nose, the softness of her cloak unfamiliar against Larra’s scarred palms. She gentled Larra, as she relaxed, stroking her long hair, rocking them both gently.

“Sansa?” she murmured.

“Yes, Larra?”

“Did you steal my dress?”

Startled, Sansa’s cries turned to a rippling laugh as they unfolded from each other; Sansa’s smile shone through her tears, her eyes glinting, and they parted, though they did not move away from each other.

“I did,” Sansa nodded unapologetically, glancing down at the rich folds of her gown. Larra noticed the leather wrapped around her sister’s torso in a complicated configuration, the laces hidden at her waist beneath a wide belt. Tears slipped silently down Sansa’s delicate pink cheeks as she smiled tremulously. She told Larra earnestly, “I wished to don a she-wolf’s pelt. I wanted you with me.”

Larra gazed at her sister: They were now the same height, gazing eye-to-eye. She was truly beautiful. Her fiery red hair shimmered as the snows drifted gently around them, clinging to her wet eyelashes, kissing her elegant nose.

“I always was…” Larra told her. How could she not think of her sisters constantly? “Look at you…” She stepped back, keeping a hold on her sister’s gloved hands, sweeping her eyes over the gown Sansa had fashioned for herself from Larra’s fabrics, the elegant cloak that brought to mind Father, the hairstyle that reclaimed her heritage as a Northwoman. She sniffed, wiping her tears away. She cupped her sister’s cheek in one hand, gazing into her face - a face so familiar, and yet so strange - and leaned in to kiss her cheek fiercely. “A warrior-queen stands before me.”

“A strategist, perhaps,” Sansa corrected, with a little irony. “I never did quite made it to queen.”

Larra smiled without delight. “But you made it home.”

Sansa gave her a tight, sad smile, a lot left unspoken. “And so have you… The Ironborn claimed they’d kill you.”

“It will take more than a few krakens to squeeze the life from me,” Larra sniffed disdainfully. “I’ve a dreadfully nasty bite.”

Sansa smiled, more warmly this time. “Me too.”

 _She fed him to his hounds_. “So I’ve heard,” Larra grinned, pride warming her. She glanced around the courtyard, ignoring everyone watching them, focusing only on the Stark sigil draped against the wall. She turned toward the direwolf statues.

“They’re new.”

“The others were beheaded,” Sansa said, with the cold bite of an unexpected frost. Sansa sighed heavily, staring grimly at the new oak door. Her blue eyes slid to Larra. “He’s down there, with Father and Robb.”

Larra knew who she meant. She didn’t need to ask. She gave a tiny nod of acknowledgement as Sansa took her hand, both of them gazing at the door where their father and brothers lay beyond.

Where Larra’s mother had been all along.


	17. Dragonglass

**Valyrian Steel**

_17_

_Dragonglass_

* * *

It disappointed him, truth be told, how little effort it took to nurture dissention in the ranks. The natives huddled in dread, starving, while the invading hordes of wild-men roved, starving, shuddering with dread every time they found themselves penned in by the ocean. The Prince’s paramour and her Sand Snakes were spitting with disappointment; the Tyrells shared disdainful glances; the Greyjoys muttered amongst themselves. They gave sound advice; and the benefit of their recent experiences; gave detailed accounts of Westeros as things lay with the surviving lords and ladies of the Six Kingdoms - _Six_ , as the other Westerosi had immediately and irrevocably respected Jon Snow’s declaration of independence.

They were too bloodthirsty, too reliant on the Queen’s forces for their own ends to risk echoing the declaration. If Jon Snow spoke the truth, he had the most to lose of all of them by not winning alliance with Queen Daenerys: And yet he refused to kneel or placate her to win her. He refused to even try to win her. And that infuriated and intrigued her, to the point that it was Jon Snow’s opinion alone that Daenerys Stormborn sought, and listened to.

The old crone Olenna could tell the bright young Queen words of hard-earned wisdom until she was blue in the face, Ellaria Sand could purr seductively of strategy and patience, and yet they were ignored: If Jon Snow repeated what they said, it was he the Queen would likely praise for his intuition and brilliance.

Queen Daenerys ignored her advisors, her council. She ignored everyone but the one man who had sworn independent sovereignty from her family’s ancestral, now-defunct dynasty.

Of course, Jon Snow did not contribute at Council meetings. He did not repeat what Lady Olenna or Ellaria Sand advised. But they all knew if he had, the Queen would listen.

They respected Jon Snow; and it rankled that the Queen did not respect their experience, their wisdom, or their allegiance - all because one man had refused her. He had her sole focus. Except to dine with the court, Jon Snow did not show his face: He had his own concerns, and advising Daenerys on her conquest was not a priority. The first man _not_ to fall in thrall to her pretty face or her dragons, he was a man among one million to defy her: And that was deeply attractive to a woman who had become accustomed to being worshipped.

She wanted _him_ to worship her.

And she spent more time trying to figure out how to make that come about, than actually do anything that would remotely impress or earn Jon Snow’s respect.

Jon Snow filled his days with his own tasks, and in fulfilling them, he inadvertently - at first - started to settle things on the island, sowing the seeds of admiration and respect, unknowingly nurturing loyalty. Then he realised what he was doing: And went about it blatantly.

It began with something largely unseen, inconsequential to most: A fish.

Insignificant, to those accustomed to full bellies and the abundance of summertime.

Later, maesters might venture that the fate of Queen Daenerys’ conquest rested with a single fish.

It began with a fish, and with the King in the North’s ship, the one ship moored off the shore that had not been forcibly requisitioned into the Queen’s armada. Jon Snow did not ask _permission_ to leave the island: He just did it. And because he did not cede that _appearance_ of the Queen’s control over him, everyone acted accordingly. They treated him as the King he was, his orders carried out without hesitation or second-guessing - or _approval_ from the Queen or her counsellors: Jon Snow’s men were not denied access to their little dinghy, laden with nets knotted by the islanders, nor were they denied the freedom to row to the King’s ship.

When the King’s ship sailed past the horizon, it had orders to take Arbour wine to the Saltpans to trade: And to return with barrels of salt. The King did not leave with his ship: His men found lodging in the tiny port, with the understanding that if Jon Snow caught wind that his men had laid so much as a hand on their wives and daughters, his men would _lose_ that hand.

The King in the North would tolerate no violation of guest-right - either as host _or_ as guest.

The islanders came out of their cottages, emboldened by a direwolf’s protection, to work alongside the Northmen and fish the choicest waters around the island, snaring the migrating shoals, each haul of the nets groaning with thousands of fish. They were not too late.

First it was one small dinghy. Then a handful more were reclaimed from the armada with the King’s help, flagrantly, in broad daylight. By the seventh sunrise, a sizeable fleet of liberated boats was hauling fish from the seas. No-one had asked the Queen’s permission. They did not seek her forgiveness.

A direwolf had emboldened them, reminded them that they were proud, and fiercely devoted to their own survival - and that they alone knew this island and its secrets. _They_ held the power among the smallfolk gathered, Dothraki and Meereenese and Unsullied and Westerosi, liberated slaves from every known part of the world.

The tiny quay started to bustle as natives taught Dothraki how to prepare saltwater fish; and Meereenese taught the islanders their own peculiar way to preserve fish in vinegar; the Northmen brought their own knowledge, smoking the fish - smoked Northern salmon was a delicacy that had made Lord Manderly rich, exporting shiploads to King’s Landing, Highgarden and Lys. Through food, many different cultures came together and communicated, sharing their skills: Little language was necessary - everything was communicated through scent and taste and touch.

Jon Snow solved the problem of immediate starvation. He soothed rattled nerves and helped invaders form lasting bonds with natives, for one very special reason: Survival.

People remembered.

Though the Northmen had been housed by the waterfront, Jon Snow remained a guest at the castle: His presence was felt, and though he was not invited into the Council meetings nor did he ask to be present during them, his comings and goings were discussed at length.

Instead of discussing his efforts to feed the masses gathered on Dragonstone - Queen Daenerys’ masses - the Queen focused on his refusal to _kneel_ to her. Instead of questioning what Jon Snow found so intriguing among the dusty shelves of Dragonstone’s extensive library, that he spent _hours_ in there, poring over crackling scrolls, undisturbed for hours, she vacillated over the fact he had shown absolutely no interest in either asking for or accepting a seat on her Council.

Jon Snow had not pressed the issue of an alliance to defeat a mythical threat. Queen Daenerys did not question _why_ : She obsessed over the fact the King in the North would rather stride the shorelines of the island, and share his meals with the smallfolk, than dine on foreign delicacies as her guest…

It was a curious thing that the Queen, so vicious and condescending - arrogant - toward Jon Snow upon his arrival, now seemed to consider the King in the North her _guest_ , and consider him a guest in poor taste for not flattering her. More than that, she seemed to be doing her utmost to try and impress the King in the North. He refused to dine with her every night, preferring the smallfolk’s simple, wholesome fare, and sat polite but visibly uncomfortable at the Queen’s table, dining on exotic delicacies, listening to queer, unsettling music and watching foreign beauties dance and coil their bodies into intricate knots to entertain them.

And while the Queen nurtured her growing resentment toward her advisers, tempering her impatience with their wisdom, she ignored the people she had brought across the world: She did not see that Jon Snow had arrived at Dragonstone - and shown her up.

First it was the fish: Then it was the glasshouses.

“You once told me your father made you head of all the drains and cisterns at Casterly Rock,” Jon said to Lord Tyrion, as they wandered the pine-scented godswood. There was no weirwood here, the residents of the island long since turned to the Light of the Seven: More recently, Stannis Baratheon had burned the statues of the Seven from the castle’s sept, offering them up to the Lord of Light. The last autumn roses clung to vines that strangled their way around ancient apple trees, their perfume incongruous against the pervasive odour of sulphur and salt that permeated the air.

“All the shit found its way to the sea,” the Imp sighed.

“At Winterfell we have glasshouses. Dozens of them. My father used to warn us as boys that the glasshouses kept the North fed during the worst winters,” Jon Snow sighed, frowning. “Even in the deepest snows the glasshouses remained untouched; the hot-springs piped through the walls kept the glasshouses warm. Smallfolk from Winter’s Town kept the glasshouses of Winterfell tended, even when they had no lord and master to guide them…they rely on the glasshouses too. Why are yours barren, my lord?”

Lord Tyrion sighed, gazing up at the ancient, dark trees. “An experienced leader trains his inferiors to the point where his absence does not affect how the army performs. Something my father taught me. The North is used to strong, wise leadership - the Starks value their smallfolk as much as their bannermen, and the smallfolk trust the Starks. Such loyalty was not easily broken, as men found to their own destruction.”

“Aye,” Jon Snow agreed.

“Stannis Baratheon was an effective military leader, but he was not a great lord,” Lord Tyrion said, shaking his head. “He did not engender loyalty such as your father did… Every person at Winterfell knew their place, and their value; they took pride in living under Stark rule and in their small way could show their support of the Starks by maintaining Winterfell.”

“Do you intend to maintain Dragonstone as your stronghold throughout winter, my lord?” Jon asked, giving him a look that reminded Tyrion so vividly of Ned Stark, who could have had no idea that two of his sons would be named King in the North.

“You can forgive me, Your Grace, if I do not share the Queen’s plans for conquest with a foreign ruler,” Lord Tyrion smirked, his eyes twinkling.

“Your conquest won’t last long, or end the way you want, if you don’t respect the winter,” Jon said softly. He sighed, shaking his head. “Your glasshouses are empty.”

“The Dothraki and Unsullied are many things, Your Grace; sadly farmers is not one of those things,” Lord Tyrion smirked.

“They’re not all blood-riders and Unsullied,” Jon Snow said, giving Tyrion a look. “You visited Winterfell; you explored the castle, I remember you trying to trace the source of the hot-springs that feed the aqueducts, the watercourses that maintain the glasshouses even in the heart of winter.”

“A fruitless endeavour,” Lord Tyrion sighed, “and hell on my legs. I feel you are driving at something, Your Grace.”

“You were at Castle Black when you designed the saddle for my brother Bran,” Jon said. “You designed the drains and cisterns of Casterly Rock. Is it possible to design some sort of irrigation system to bring in thermal waters to the glasshouses here at Dragonstone?”

Lord Tyrion smiled at Jon Snow. Even removed from his own castle and lands, the King in the North cared for the safety and survival of _people_ \- whether or not they were ‘ _his_ ’ - one of the reasons he had been named King in the North in the first place.

Within a week, the Hand of the Queen had provided technical drawings, schematics for a system of irrigation to bring thermal water from hot-springs into the castle, to the glasshouses.

And the King in the North was found, not with a sword in his hands but with a spade, one among a team of smallfolk - Dothraki, Meereenese and Dragonstone natives alike - turning over the earth in the neglected raised beds spreading across the glasshouses. Nomadic peoples and city-dwelling slaves had joined the King in the North to learn through his example, as they had when he provided the tools and experience they needed to learn how to fish and preserve their catch, and the natives of Dragonstone found themselves in a position of strength: They _were_ farmers. Their fighting men had long gone off to war, and never returned - those who remained had grown up to fill the voids in the fields, in the fishing-boats. They shared their knowledge, and in doing so assumed positions of authority over the rest. The Dothraki and Meereenese freed-men were invaders, yes; but they were at the mercy of the natives of Dragonstone to survive the winter - winter, a foreign concept to Essos, reserved for tales of the barbaric Westerosi with their furs and wild beards.

The King in the North wore no furs as he tended the earth; his leathers were removed, the sleeves of his coarse linen undershirt rolled up, sweating profusely as he swung a pick-axe to loose stubborn earth.

“I have served a great many Kings in my time,” said an elegant voice, “and yet never one such as would toil in the fields beside his people to help provide for them. Where did the King in the North learn to farm?” The King glanced up, squinting as sweat dripped into his eyes. He accepted a ladle of water from a young girl whose task was to run between the diggers and offer a drink. The King wiped his mouth on the shoulder of his undershirt, and glanced at Lord Varys - trying to work him out. So far, the Master of Whisperers had been a polite, soft-spoken man with a neutral expression and only vaguely interested in what went on around him - the great ruse, Jon knew. He was not the terrifying Spider Jon had always heard whispers about when he was a boy.

Lord Varys was…curious. A curious character in himself, and a man full of curiosity. As far as Jon could tell, he was patient, benign and charming - he had as yet to see the Spider as anything but content to observe the juicy flies caught up in his web, twitching this or that strand of silver webbing to suit him.

Jon couldn’t say he _liked_ the Master of Whisperers - he was too Southern, even if he was a foreigner: He played court politics too well, and Jon, though he understood the gist of it, could play the game but chaffed against being forced to, especially when time was of the essence.

More and more, the Master of Whisperers had made his presence felt near Jon: Sansa had warned that the Master of Whisperers had a network of spies, even probably Northmen whose swords were sworn to them - they would all be feeding him information. And yet there was little necessity for that, when the Spider himself was content to observe Jon Snow personally. At first, he had never approached, only watched; then he had started conversing with the smallfolk; then Jon’s men. Finally, Ser Davos - and Jon, who’d had enough of the lurking, and sat the Spider down with a cup of Northern mulled wine around a campfire.

The Spider seemed as comfortable in silks as in boiled leathers and roughspun; less cautious with the smallfolk, and disdainful of the nobles he manipulated with such ease. He was clever, and patient, and wise.

He had served many kings for a reason. He had weathered every storm, maintaining his position of influence. There was a lesson in that.

Jon couldn’t help wonder if Sansa hadn’t watched the Spider performing at court, and emulated some of what she saw: His courtesy, his benevolence, his unassuming charisma.

He knew the Master of Whispers was more curious for his own sake about Jon, than for the sake of the Queen - Jon had had to learn how to read people, or he would never have made it this far, never made it out of Mance Rayder’s tent: He knew enough about listening to his own instincts to know that the Queen’s court was rumbling with discontent.

They weren’t impressed that it was Jon Snow, a bastard named King in the North, who had brought together native islanders with Dothraki, Unsullied and Meereenese freed-slaves to fish; to overturn the barren glasshouses and plant winter crops; and to build sturdy accommodations for the thousands who would be left behind when the Unsullied and Dothraki blood-riders sailed to the mainland on conquest. They were disgruntled that Jon Snow had taken initiative in preparing for the winter, and at the same time ensuring a continued supply of food - untouchable by Cersei’s forces due to the fierce winter sea-storms - and rather than try and convince the Queen that it was in her interests to do it, had already organised the manpower to get the work done before the worst of the winter storms came south.

They were impressed with Jon: Not with _their_ new Queen.

The Master of Whisperers sought Jon out at least once a day to check on his progress. He asked Jon questions, seemingly benign - about his family, his education, his memories of childhood… Anything to gently coax a conversation from Jon, notoriously quiet whenever he graced the Queen’s court.

“My sister wasn’t born patient. Father used to joke, she came first - too eager to explore the world around her,” the King said, his smile pained, something shuttering his dark grey eyes. “We had an excellent Maester at Winterfell - Luwin. When she’d irritated the septa to distraction, Larra was sent to join me and my brothers in the schoolroom. She was the most voracious student - all Robb and Theon and I wanted to do was fight… Maester Luwin taught Larra patience through gardening. She had her own allotments in the gardens and the glasshouses…she loved them; she became meticulous in caring for her plants, and she adored flowers… Maester Luwin taught her to appreciate the details, to give things _time_ , to nurture…to have hope… When things were bad with Lady Catelyn, Larra would go to her gardens…they soothed her… I’d be the one to go and find her and bring her back when she was ready… She used to put me to work. I learned, because she had. We’d tend the allotments, and Larra would tell me of her plans for the autumn harvest, how she’d prepare for winter… She knew she’d be left behind, to look after Winterfell for Robb…”

Lord Varys smiled enigmatically, something dark and pained in his eyes.

“I never met the King in the North, of course, your brother, Robb,” Lord Varys amended, his eyes turning thoughtful, almost sad, “But your father… He abhorred the game, but he understood better than any the true nature of power. When he was Lord of Winterfell there was not a day that went by that he did not invite a stranger to dine beside him. To hear of their life, their profession, to hear their stories, and their wants, their grief and their hopes.” The Spider glanced around the glasshouses, watching people turn over the earth in the raised beds, more working with the guidance of the architects to make Lord Tyrion’s plans a reality.

“My father said never ask a stranger to fight for you,” Jon said, and the Master of Whisperers nodded.

“You took your father’s words to heart, Your Grace.”

“They’ve never failed me yet,” Jon Snow said grimly, his face shuttering of all emotion. One thing could be said of Ned Stark: His children had loved _and_ respected him. That was a rare combination.

“I can say, honestly, Your Grace, having worked closely with Lord Eddard as Hand of the King, and having heard his reputation for many years before that…he would be very proud of your contributions to Dragonstone.” He bowed his head respectfully. “It would appear that you are incapable of _not_ improving the lot of all those you meet. Most would enjoy the time in idleness; Queen Daenerys did bring some wonderful entertainers with her from the exotic East.”

“Aye, she did,” Jon Snow said grimly: The beauties from far away could not turn Jon Snow’s eye. He shook his head. “I can’t be idle, Lord Varys… I feel like I’m failing if I’m standing still… I know there’s work to be done at Winterfell - Dragonstone may well be one of the last outposts of Westeros…” He broke off, shaking his head; he had not repeated his request for an alliance, for the Queen to send her hordes North to aid Winterfell in a war no-one believed was real.

Lord Varys asked knowingly, “Has the Queen provided anything toward this undertaking?”

“After a fashion,” Jon Snow smirked, nodding toward the wheelbarrows waiting, some being emptied into the raised beds. “ _Shit_. According to Lord Tyrion the ancient Valyrians used dragon dung to fertilise their crops. Let’s just say the Queen’s children have provided amply toward the regeneration of the glasshouses.” Lord Varys raised his eyebrows, not in the least surprised that the Queen had had only indirect involvement in a venture that would benefit those who followed her.

After the fish came the glasshouses; after the glasshouses came Winter’s Town.

There were simply too many people: The island was not equipped, nor were the nomads who had accompanied the armada. The Dothraki were not used to _cold_ : They had no experience of vicious sea-storms, or of ice. They had no comprehension of _snow_. They were not even used to bitterly cold winds gusting off the choppy black waters. Their tents of hide would not suffice: There was not sufficient grass to build mud-huts as the Dothraki would in their sacred city of Vaes Dothrak.

Once again it was Jon Snow who went among the people, using a translator among the Unsullied, and then Missandei, and sought out builders, carpenters and architects - and there were several, among the Dothraki freed-slaves and those from Meereen who had followed Daenerys Targaryen to a better life.

On the advice of Ser Davos, the bluntly-spoken, wise Onion Knight, Jon Snow designed a town: The first buildings rose in the shadow of the castle, protected by it, blocking the bitterest of winter winds coming down from the north and taking full advantage of the meagre winter sunlight. Drawing on his knowledge of Winterfell and Winter’s Town, and Lord Varys’ intimate knowledge of the best and worst of King’s Landing’s neighbourhoods, the town was planned, and rose quickly with the available workforce idle and becoming agitated. People were put to work: And because they were working on somewhere they would live, protected from the elements they were unused to, in preparation for a winter they had never experienced, they were happy to keep working.

They were happy to help the King in the North.

“You’ve done much, Your Grace, in only a very short time,” Lord Varys said in a congratulatory tone, bowing his head respectfully. “I must commend you. Yet you have asked for nothing in return. No mention of an alliance with Queen Daenerys.”

The King stared long and hard at the Spider, and simply said, “No.” Jon chose his words very carefully.

He had gone in strong with a request for full alliance and unified military strength to defeat a common enemy the Queen did not believe existed.

 _Anything_ he might glean from her - or her advisers - would be more than he had hoped for, though less than they thought he wanted.

They were all fucked if he couldn’t get dragonglass.

So, on one of the finer afternoons when Jon took himself off for a long walk along the coast, gazing northwards, and he was met by Lord Tyrion who mentioned the Spider and Jon’s lack of persistence, Jon asked.

“Obsidian. Dragonstone sits atop a mountain of it,” Jon told Tyrion, as the Master of Whisperers observed silently, his hands hidden in the rich folds of his heavy, exotic robes, now fur-trimmed as the Westerosi weather had started to bring on near-daily storms - the days of fishing had passed, the shoals snared just in time. “Obsidian’s the only thing that can kill a White Walker, and with them all wights they turned perish. My brother Sam stabbed one with a dagger of obsidian; it shattered into a thousand pieces of ice and melted away… I would ask a guest-gift of the Queen; to mine the caves of dragonglass and ship it back to Winterfell.”

“That’s all?” Lord Tyrion asked dubiously, as if Jon was being absurd with his modest request.

“I don’t suppose I could request the Queen allow me to commandeer one of her dragons for the war-effort?” Jon quipped; Lord Tyrion’s lips twitched.

“I’d imagine the answer would be a firm _no_ ,” he smirked. “Why a dragon?”

“Fire kills wights.”

“I thought you said obsidian kills wights.”

“Obsidian kills White Walkers, renders whatever magic created them null,” Jon explained calmly. “A wight is a reanimated corpse, raised and controlled by a White Walker. Fire kills wights; but only obsidian and Valyrian steel kills White Walkers.”

“How many White Walkers are there?” Lord Varys asked curiously.

“There is the Night King, and at least a dozen commanders,” Jon said, glancing at Lord Tyrion. “They put your father to shame. And they command legions. After the losses at Hard Home…to say a hundred thousand of the dead march upon the Wall would be a safe estimate.”

“And you intend to equip Northmen with obsidian to fight an army of a hundred-thousand?” Lord Tyrion asked.

“We’ll fight; and we’ll die. But what else should we do?” the King in the North asked. Neither of the Queen’s advisers could answer him.

But they did grant his request.

Rather, they coaxed and bullied and wheedled and charmed the Queen into granting the request - obsidian as a guest-gift, the parting-gift a host gave someone as token that they were no longer under the protection of guest-right.

It was a subtle hint from Jon that his time at Dragonstone was nearing its end: That he would expect no favours from the Queen, or alliance, or protection. He would _expect_ her acknowledgement that the North was an independent kingdom - and because it was expected, and because he had shown himself every inch a king, a leader the people of Dragonstone _needed_ \- Dothraki, native islanders, Meereenese freed-slaves and Unsullied alike - there were only two options open to the Queen: Accept that the North would never kneel to her.

Or execute the King in the North she lusted after, and ensure the North would never kneel to her.

The Queen was sufficiently enthralled by the King in the North that she graciously granted the use of four of her own ships to increase the volume of mined obsidian being shipped to Winterfell - and increase the chances that at least one ship would make it to White Harbour with its cargo intact: The seas were getting rougher.

Theon Greyjoy offered Ironborn to sail the ships North, through the treacherous waters.

Only the Ironborn enjoyed vicious storms! They were the only men stupid - and mad - enough to take a thrill from the brutality of the elements.

And they were the only men in the known world unafraid to sail them: The only men who could get the precious cargo of obsidian to Winterfell, through any dangers.

“Jon!” the voice echoed off the dank walls. He still couldn’t get used to the cold, to the idea that Princess Shireen had grown up in this miserable place, to the sound of Theon Greyjoy’s voice. They had lingered in a state of polite distance for weeks, ever since Jon’s arrival; whenever he appeared at court, Theon did his best to make himself invisible - not wishing to provoke confrontation with Jon. It was the first time he had approached Jon: Perhaps because there were only the eyes of Ser Davos on him. He raised his pale eyes to Jon’s face hesitantly. “Could I speak with you?”

Jon turned, paused…watched Theon Greyjoy teetering at the top of the steps, beside Queen Daenerys’ jagged throne. Ser Davos caught his eye: Jon made his decision, then and there.

“Aye,” he murmured to the smuggler, who nodded and departed. Jon waited for Theon to descend the steps; he walked hunched, cowering, a reminder of all Sansa had told Jon he had endured…afraid of himself, of his memories, his own shadow - and now afraid of Jon. Perhaps he always had been, since the moment he betrayed Robb. Sansa had told Jon that Theon refused to take the black, to see Sansa to the end of her journey to Castle Black, that Jon would kill him as soon as look at him.

“What you said…when you arrived at Dragonstone… You could’ve lied to the Queen, promised to bend the knee if she joined you… You didn’t have to warn her about the White Walkers… You risked everything to tell an enemy the truth,” Theon said thoughtfully.

“I came here to make peace before the North could be drawn into yet another conflict we will not survive,” Jon said earnestly. “And it seems to me, we need to be honest with each other if we’re ever going to fight beside each other.”

“You’ve always known what was right,” Theon said gloomily, though with that hint of respect utterly foreign in Jon’s memory of him. Theon gazed at Jon, gazed through Jon, as if seeing their younger selves, sparring in the courtyard. “Even when we were all young and stupid, you always knew. Every step you take…it’s always the right step.”

“It’s not,” Jon said grimly. “It may seem that way from the outside, but I promise you - it’s not true. I’ve done plenty of things that I regret.”

Theon Greyjoy looked him in the eye and cringed in shame. “Not compared to me, you haven’t.”

Jon went still, his face leeched of all emotion, his eyes hard shards of obsidian in the gloomy hall. “No,” he agreed, a dangerous undercurrent making his words heavy, “not compared to you.”

Theon’s lips parted, his eyes gazing into a distance, horror flickering across his face, and grief. Then he set his jaw in resolve, and Jon heard his gasp before he plunged ahead, stepping down to Jon’s level and admitting, “I always wanted to do the right thing… Be the _right kind_ of person. But I never knew what that meant. It always seemed like there…there was an impossible choice I had to make… Stark or Greyjoy.”

Jon clenched his jaw, and strode forward - didn’t touch Theon; and Theon did not flinch. He knew his brother too well: Jon would have killed him that first day he arrived, if he’d truly wanted to.

Breathlessly, grief-stricken, heart-broken, Jon rushed out, “Our father was more of a father to you than yours ever was!”

“He was.”

“-and you betrayed him. Betrayed his _memory_.”

“I did,” Theon said softly, raising his tired eyes to Jon’s stern face. He didn’t look like Robb - he looked like Ned. Like Benjen, honour-bound to the Watch; and like Bran…who Theon had driven from his home…

And _Larra_ …

Jon sighed, nodding to himself. “But you never lost him…” He raised his eyes to Theon’s. “He’s a part of you. Just like he’s a part of me.”

“The things I’ve done,” Theon said shakily.

Jon sighed. “It’s not my place to forgive you for all of it,” he said gently, “but what I can forgive…I do.” Theon raised his eyes to Jon’s face, visibly stunned. “You don’t need to choose. You’re a Greyjoy…and you’re a Stark… _Thank you_ , for what you did for Sansa.”

“When I was Ramsay’s prisoner…Yara…tried to save me. She’s the only one…who tried to save me,” Theon said shakily. He looked at Jon. “I should’ve protected her. Protected Larra…our sister… The first time I ever arrived at Winterfell, she wore her hair in two plaits, and she had bloody knees, and the biggest smile you’ve ever seen… She thought I was another of Ned Stark’s bastards. The first thing she ever said to me was ‘Welcome home, brother’…she embraced me, kissed my cheek… I was vile to her. Insulted she thought I was a bastard.”

“You were wounded, stripped from what remained of your family,” Jon said compassionately.

“She offered me unconditional love,” Theon said softly, his voice thick, “And I betrayed her.”

“And she got the better of you,” Jon reminded him, and a faint smile teased at the corner of Theon’s mouth.

“Aye… Didn’t she always?” he said sadly. His shoulders slumped, and he sighed. “I’d give anything to go back to our schoolroom.”

“Aye,” Jon agreed grimly, too exhausted to allow himself to linger in those memories. He sighed, squinting at Theon. “Do you remember Old Nan’s stories?” Theon nodded tentatively. “Let me show you something…”

“When Maester Luwin was teaching us Geography did you ever imagine we’d both end up here? And after such journeys?” Theon asked quietly, following Jon and the flickering torchlight further into the caves that glistened deep onyx striated with multi-coloured hues when the firelight struck at odd angles.

They had found the cave early into their stay on Dragonstone, the entrance to the caves vast, unspoiled: There was only one place in the entire network of caverns that Jon had declared off-limits to the pick-axes now hacking at the walls at all hours - volunteer miners worked in shifts to ensure a constant stream of obsidian being passed out, crated up and shipped north.

“I don’t think anybody could’ve ever predicted our lives,” Jon said grimly, striding on ahead, sure-footed in territory he had familiarised himself with over weeks. As in the glasshouses, the King in the North had taken up an axe to join the men working: Mutual respect radiated from the men labouring as Jon wove past them, and the flickering torches nestled strategically around the caves, to one particular alcove half-hidden by what Maester Luwin would have called a natural _optical illusion_ \- a trick of the eyes, two rock-faces concealing a narrow passage into a small, sheltered cave. Jon had found it purely by accident, following the trail of smoke from one of his torches as the air sucked the smoke toward the entrance: The cave had once, eons ago, been a hiding-spot, perhaps even a home.

Jon slid into the cave sideways, and for a breathless, heart-sinking moment, he entered a different cave… He blinked, and took a breath, and eased into the chamber. Small, but the ceiling of the cave rose out of sight. Theon slipped into the cave beside him, and as Jon raised his torch, Theon Greyjoy’s lips parted.

“White Walkers.”

“Aye. And the Children,” Jon said, pointing out the etchings in the obsidian, ancient markings made beyond the Age of Heroes.

“Nan’s stories…they were here…they were real,” Theon breathed.

“Yes,” Jon smiled, raising the torch higher to show the markings. “Thousands upon thousands of years ago, the First Men came here… I think they mined for obsidian themselves…” He shone the light closer to some of the etchings - the White Walkers…the curious spirals all White Walkers and wights now left their prey, dismembered bodies, limbs… _Ever the artists_ … He wondered why they mimicked the spirals…one of the etchings showed weirwoods growing in a similar pattern - the grove above the Wall had grown in a similar pattern, Jon remembered.

“You think Men made these drawings?”

“Aye,” Jon said, showing Theon more of the etchings. White Walkers…and Children…and Men - Men riding _direwolves_ , holding spears of obsidian…

“Starks!” Theon blurted a laugh of astonishment, and Jon’s eyes glinted in the torchlight as they both smiled up at the etchings.

“Brandon the Builder,” Jon said warmly, smiling.

“Brandon the Builder, riding a direwolf into battle…and here you are, all those thousands of years later…they used to say Robb rode Grey Wind into battle… The way they tell it, you rode Ghost into battle at the head of a wildling army,” Theon said, his smile easy for the first time, a grin that reminded Jon of their childhood. Even the mention of Robb did not dim their smiles, for this one moment.

“Strange how history rhymes,” Jon said, gazing up at the etchings. Whether it had been an etching of Brandon the Builder was anyone’s guess; Jon liked to believe it was. Maester Luwin used to say that history did not repeat; but sometimes the rhyme appeared later, similar but non-identical circumstances creating unique events that echoed throughout history.

That night, gathered around a campfire on the shore, they listened to one of Jon’s men - a veteran of Hard Home and a fierce warrior who refused to leave the King’s side, representative of his people and warning to any who dared cross the King in the North - sing songs of the Free Folk in the common tongue, telling the stories of Brandon Stark and the Night King.

Theon sat beside one of his sisters, and one of his brothers, sharing fish stew and ale and listening to familiar but altered stories he and Jon had grown up on. They both thought of their brothers and sisters - the dead, and the living.

And Theon couldn’t help compare one King in the North to the other, to their dead brother he had betrayed… And Jon, the brother who had forgiven him for it.

Since leaving Winterfell, they had both become men. Their journeys had been different, but no less difficult.

They finished their meals, finished their ale, and both went to their beds to live with their regret. And wake up the next morning, nurturing _hope_ for a better future than the years they had endured.


	18. But

**Valyrian Steel**

_18_

_But_

* * *

She was mesmerising to watch.

Not because she strode through the halls of Winterfell in fine leathers and new velvet gowns, her hair free and curling, her violet eyes flashing - because she didn’t.

The girl who might once have been overwhelmed with pride at her brother’s kingship, and simultaneously delighted and chagrined by her new status as a King’s eldest, twin-sister, had gone dormant in the godswood with Maester Luwin: The woman she had had to become, to keep her brother alive, was a quiet, shrewd, dangerous woman honed to kill when startled, whose experiences had made her brutal, efficient and watchful.

Larra was _cunning_.

Some of the hardest lessons she had ever learned had been taught to her not in Maester Luwin’s schoolroom, nor in Mikken’s forge, or Ser Rodrik’s training yard, or even at her father’s knee. Sansa had learned the same lessons, in the sweltering, duplicitous court of King’s Landing: Larra had learned them in the endless, glittering ice-meadows, the majestic fjords and the snow-capped mountains, frozen lakes and beguiling caves of the True North.

How to _watch_.

How to _listen_.

How to trust implicitly in her own senses, the feeling in the pit of her stomach warning her, always warning her…

She had been stripped of everything superfluous, her education and fine upbringing, her manners and compassion, stripped of everything but those skills inherent to _survival_.

Larra relied on her senses, her instincts, just as much as Last Shadow did. She was a wild thing born of the North; and only a direwolf could survive the winter.

She did not saunter around Winterfell as the King’s sister - was she a lady? A princess? - in fine gowns and jewels, and, in the beginning, at least, she did not spend the majority of her days cloistered with Lady Stark in the solar combing through papers.

Because Larra…was now rather _feral_.

She was not the sister Sansa remembered, with her magnetic charisma and deeply maternal warmth and soft curves, calloused hands, sharp wit, sternness balanced by her playfulness - and her boundless love and affection for her siblings. Sansa remembered Larra striding around Winterfell with her head held high and shoulders thrown back, self-assuredness born of her own tenacity, her education and her decisiveness in forging her own role in the world where none had been made available to her because of the circumstances her birth - which Sansa’s mother had done nothing to aid.

Larra had been the confidante of and compassionate, sensible dispenser of advice to Robb; had knocked Theon down a few pegs, slapping him when he was foul and his arrogance was overwhelming; a playmate and tutor to curious, sharp little Bran; idol to rambunctious young Arya. Larra was the only one who appreciated that wild things like the youngest Stark sister were made to be free, could be gentled but never truly tamed, and had learned how to gentle Arya. To Rickon, Larra had been a second, then surrogate mother, his playmate and the one who kissed his injuries, cuddled him, knew how to gentle him as she did Arya, to sit in her lap and learn his letters, paying him attention, showering him with love and kisses and listening to his stories and getting to the source of his wrathful tantrums - especially in those dark days before their family splintered and divided irrevocably, and the worst thing to happen to them all was Bran’s fall.

With Jon, she had had a deep, impenetrable bond, his equal in everything, his partner and playmate, his guiding light and the tenacious warmth and unconditional love of family he had always craved, of _belonging_ \- she was his sister, his _home_.

To Sansa, Larra had always been a strange figure. Simultaneously she had admired and disdained her older sister, the eldest of them all: She was charming, witty, elegant and flirtatious, earthy, sensible, hard-working, decisive and shrewd, a creative thinker insatiable for knowledge and new skills. Sansa had been raised by her mother to look at her bastard half-sister, and strive to be _more_.

More elegant and refined. More charming, more amenable, gentler, sweeter. Daintier. Soft. The wildness of Larra’s personality, the interests Sansa had disapproved of - riding, hunting, gardening, her _education_ , working with her hands on anything but embroidery - had been a model for Sansa of things _not_ to do, if she wanted to be the refined lady she envisioned her older self as, who was sophisticated and dainty in everything she did. Sansa’s smiles were gentler; her voice softer; her movements more restrained, almost delicate. Even the way she had been raised to eat was _dainty_. Lady Catelyn had done all she could to ensure Sansa was raised to perfectly exemplify the traits of a well-bred daughter of a High Lord of Westeros. Even their accents were different, Sansa’s cut crystal, soft, lyrical; Larra’s the earthy, rich, almost guttural accent of the North, sometimes harsh and often boisterous. Sansa spoke like her mother: Larra spoke like their father.

Only during her captivity had Sansa realised that the things about her sister’s character that had chafed - her vibrant smile; her enthusiasm for everything; her flirtatiousness and love of rambunctious play and dancing; her cleverness and fierce dedication to pursuing a “man’s” education, sharing Maester Luwin’s schoolroom with their brothers, and applying everything she learned by creating games to teach their little brothers, songs and books and toys, finding cunning ways to educate Rickon when he refused to take lessons; her wildness and her free laughter; her expressiveness and physical playfulness - were the very things Sansa missed the most, and had made even fading memories of Larra outshine a sea of faceless sweet young ladies Sansa had suffered in her years at court.

She was ashamed to admit it had taken her far too long to realise that Larra had been wild, fierce, deeply loving, creative and unique. That the sister she had often maligned was truly exceptional.

Larra was mesmerising in her passion, her commitment, and her grit.

Larra was the kind of woman epic poetry was written about.

People forgot perfect little ladies - little doves like Sansa’s younger self - the moment they left the room.

But everyone remembered Larra’s fierce, flashing wolf-smile, her vivid violet-blue eyes, her rich laugh and passion, her sharp tongue and dry humour, her cleverness, her playfulness and creativity, and her earthy, rich warmth and deep love.

Among a thousand Sansas, there was only one Larra.

Rather, thousands of the girl Sansa had once been, and would have been content to remain, if she had lived another life.

Sansa had grown - fangs and claws and a glorious fur coat, and had remembered how to howl to the moon and stars and hunt for her prey - and Larra had changed.

Experience was the most brutal teacher: And they had both learned.

The warmth Sansa had always associated with Larra - even toward Sansa, who had always been disdainful and prickly toward her half-siblings as soon as she had learned what the word ‘bastard’ meant - had cooled. Because all Larra’s strength, all that she was and all that she had to give, all that she had been forced to become, was so honed on Bran’s survival that there had been no room for anything else. The Land of Always-Winter had stolen Larra’s warmth.

And Larra’s world had become smaller: Her world had become Bran - and Meera Reed, the wild-haired girl from the Neck whose brother had been lost beyond the Wall, whose face was tired and wan but creased with a small, powerful smile full of innocent, pure delight tinged with grief when a breakfast consisting a single egg fried in butter and rashers of smoked back-bacon were set before her.

She had been intrinsic to Bran’s survival, and to his and Larra’s return to Winterfell against all odds, when all the world believed them dead: Sansa would have given Lady Meera anything she asked for to show her gratitude. Sansa knew Meera had Larra’s love and loyalty forever.

One absurdly modest breakfast was all Meera had asked for.

And she had eaten it, wearing her wildling furs, strapped with weapons, her fingers scarred and chapped and bruised, her hair tangled in curls that reminded Sansa too vividly of Jon, as Larra looked on, fiddling with her spoon and a tiny portion of porridge, the ghost of her old warmth flickering with the first smile of contentment Sansa had yet seen on her sister’s rosebud lips since her arrival.

It had not taken Sansa long to realise that, in her world becoming so small, and her role in it so brutal by necessity, the very things she had once disdained Larra for were now the traits Sansa was most anxious to encourage in Larra’s recovery.

Lady Meera Reed sought Sansa out, one brittle afternoon with the fire crackling in the grate of the solar, to quietly and patiently explain that, “Larra puts everyone else first; she’s forgotten what it means to think of _herself_ \- if she ever knew to begin with.”

Sansa set down her papers, and sighed softly, reflecting on her own childhood - watching Larra carving out a place for herself in Winterfell, as her siblings’ carer, as their brother’s castellan in his absence. Both roles demanded sacrifice, unswerving duty - to the Stark family, whose name she was denied, and to their people, selflessly devoting herself to their wellbeing, unthinking of her own desires.

As little girls, Sansa had wanted to be a _lady_ , about whom epic poems were written, songs sung of her beauty and all of that. Arya had wanted to be a warrior, to fight beside their brothers, ferocious and just.

Sansa could not remember what Larra had _wanted_ for herself. Perhaps because she had never cared to know. All Sansa could remember was that Larra was going to remain at Winterfell, long after Sansa had married her honourable knight or shining prince and had babies of her own, to look after Robb’s heirs and lands.

 _It was not like Father_ , Sansa thought to herself, _not to nurture his daughter’s desires and hopes for her future_.

Especially Larra - Sansa had often considered Larra to be Father’s favourite. She could remember yearning for the kind of smile from him that Father always had for Larra.

Now, of course, Sansa understood that Father’s smile, his love, was all he could give Larra. Because of Sansa’s mother’s hatred for two motherless children.

Larra had fashioned herself for duty from a young age - bastards grew up sooner than true-born children, Jon had always said: Larra had understood her place not just in their family but in the world, and had made herself indispensable to her siblings - to ensure she had a place in their home long after Father was gone, and his protection with him.

It nettled Sansa, to realise she had no idea what her sister wanted from life, what secret desires warmed her heart and kept her going, even if she couldn’t acknowledge them, and never dared hope for them.

It upset Sansa to realise she had never had any true relationship with her sister - just as she hadn’t with Jon. Not like the sometimes absurdly intimate bond she and Jon had been nurturing these last months together, uniting the North to reclaim Winterfell, and ruling it justly and wisely together, as Father and Mother had.

Now was Sansa’s chance. The sister she had thought dead, skewered and burned by Ironborn…was very much alive. And Sansa was not the girl she had once been; she appreciated how unique her sister was. How rare her qualities.

Sansa invited Lady Meera - in her furs and tangled curls - to sit in the solar with her, sharing a cup of herb tea. Until the pot was emptied and the tea cold and bitter on their tongues, they spoke about Larra. Things Larra had not yet divulged - either because she could not, because they were observations Meera had made, or because she _would not_. And Sansa respected that some secrets were not meant to be shared, or coerced, or bullied and frightened out of a person; at the first sign of Meera’s unease, Sansa gracefully guided their conversation in another direction.

Sansa had yet to reveal - even to Lady Brienne or Jon - the darkest of her secrets, though she had alluded, and Lady Brienne and Jon had both inferred enough to know. But she could no more share her experience with Jon than he could share his experience of Hard Home with her. And she was not going to betray Larra by pressuring Meera into divulging secrets she had not earned. Even if she was eaten up by curiosity.

But what Meera had shared was enough: It painted a vivid picture of what Larra had done to protect their brother.

“She’s…struggling,” Meera told her quietly, uncertain about discussing Larra without her knowledge - even to Sansa, her sister. Whether Meera knew their past, contentious relationship, Sansa did not know; but it was very clear that Larra had Meera’s loyalty and a deep bond founded on their shared experience. “I don’t mean, with what we have endured - in fact, most of the time, Larra was the strongest of us, in her body as well as in her mind, coaxing us ever onwards… She’s struggling, here in Winterfell…”

“I’m not sure I quite know where to start to help,” Sansa admitted. She had never understood wild creatures, the way Jon and Larra and Arya had.

“She has devoted the last six years utterly to Brandon,” Meera said quietly, something smouldering deep in her dark eyes. It might have been anger, but she blinked, and Sansa was uncertain whether she had seen the rage mingled with grief in Lady Meera’s dark, tired eyes. “And now Brandon is returned safely home and…the role she fashioned herself for is no longer needed.”

Meera winced slightly, and Sansa understood: Because Sansa had taken what should have been Larra’s place, as chatelaine of Winterfell, _de facto_ ruler of the North in her brother’s name. Her only place in the world because of her birth.

Meera stared at her, saying, “I do not mean running this castle - Larra has told me how impressed she is with you… I meant that, she created herself as Brandon’s protector…now they’re home and there are so many other people who can share that responsibility, leaving her free to do other things, but...”

“But she’s at a loss what to do, because I _have_ taken the position she was trained for,” Sansa finished, the great swooping feeling of shame mixed with pride and a little regret settling in her stomach as relief swept through her - Meera wasn’t criticising Sansa for stealing her sister’s place as castellan… Sansa didn’t need Meera to tell her that was what had happened: She knew she had taken what should have been Larra’s role…leaving Larra at a loose end, all the more because she had re-forged herself for something else, only to have _that_ role taken from her too, simply by the fact they had returned to Winterfell, safe and for the most part, as whole as they had been when they left…

“You’ve spent all these years with my brother and sister,” Sansa said softly. “Living and fighting alongside Larra.”

“We were fighting…but we weren’t living,” Meera said softly, but her tone was ominous. Her eyes were dark and glinted in the firelight, emotion flickering across her face as she gulped, sniffing delicately. “We were _surviving_ , for as long as the True North allowed us. And it chased our heels until the very moment we reached the Wall. And all that time, Larra never stopped - never stopped fighting; never stopped grieving for Rickon and Osha; never stopped worrying for Bran - never stopped supporting me. She is the sister I have never had; and the only one who could ever have guided me through my grief after the death of my brother. But she…”

“She what?” Sansa pressed gently.

“She never leaned on me the way I did her,” Meera said sadly. “I don’t know that it’s in her nature now to ever…be vulnerable, to let her guard down. Especially when she sees others in need. She puts everyone else first, always.”

“Larra trained herself from a young age that she would never be the most important thing,” Sansa said regretfully; her own mother had done everything in her power to ensure the twins knew they were unwelcome in their family’s ancestral home, that they were _bastards_ , and that that meant being so far _below_ the rest of their siblings, with no hope of ever becoming anything significant, or treasured, or even thought well of, respected or admired. Moreover, that there was no point _hoping_ for anything different: Their roles had already been carved from stone the moment they first drew breath and whimpered at the breast of the mother they never knew.

Sansa sighed to herself. It was different, now, though; _Larra_ was different. She had always been…happy, _content_ , thrilled to find herself useful and needed… Now, Sansa was troubled by the impenetrable aura of _aloneness_ that seemed to emanate from Larra. Strong, but taut - ferocious, cold and brutal as the True North. Sansa had stood atop the Wall, only once, and from there the view beyond it was not so very different than the terrain she had covered with Lady Brienne and Podrick. Jon’s stories of the great ranging had altered her perceptions of the True North; as had the few details Larra and Meera had given her of their time beyond the Wall in the Land of Always-Winter. They all said something similar, though: That it was beautiful, and brutal, and unknowable.

And that was Larra, now. Beautiful, and brutal - unknowable.

Even Sansa’s limited experiences of the wilds during her flight to Castle Black had left her with a deep respect for whoever had developed the skills to survive extended periods out in the elements. She had found herself thinking of Jon, and of Uncle Benjen, who had devoted his life to the Night’s Watch, Ranging far beyond the Wall for months and even years on end - a stranger to Sansa and, frankly, a figure that had always frightened her when she was a child…

Somehow, Larra had survived; and, beyond all hope and reason, she had kept Bran alive too.

Whatever lessons Larra had learned on survival were not easily forgotten, or even pushed to the back of her mind once she returned within the strong walls of Winterfell. It was as if she was still out in the wilderness of the True North, anticipating attack all around her, from the very earth beneath her feet to the skies and the misleading woods and the screams of the winds that tore at her furs.

Sansa had sent maids to air out Larra’s old chamber, and guards stationed outside the door had reported that Larra did sometimes retire to her old chamber in the evenings…but whether she rested at all was another matter. Maids told her that the bed, with its fresh feather mattress and clean linen sheets, quilts and furs, warmed by a bedpan every night, was rarely rumpled. As if it had not been slept in.

Once, a scullery maid sent in to relight the morning fires had reported back that Lady Alarra had been asleep in the rocking-chair beneath the window, which had been open, snow whirling gently over her as two little boys slept soundly, cuddled in her bed. The Umber boy, and the wildling child Larra had saved from a hanging cage at one of the holdfasts on her journey south from the Wall. The moment the door had cracked open, Larra had woken, shimmering black dagger in hand, eyes locked on the maid, lethal and assessing - assessing whether or not the maid posed a threat. The poor maid had been frightened out of her wits: Larra had risen from her armchair, the shadows beneath her eyes almost purple, and prowled the castle, restless and agitated, her new Valyrian steel sword loose in its sheath, an obsidian dagger curled in her scarred fingers. Always wary, always watching.

As intuitive and ferocious as a direwolf.

She could not ignore the restlessness in her bones, the need to keep moving that had become so ingrained in their journey to the Land of Always Winter - and back - that…Larra could not settle.

Larra was restless; but Bran did not share her struggles. Since their return, Sansa had had to reconcile the drastic differences in her older sister and their youngest surviving brother from the siblings of her memories.

Bran had become a man; his face had matured, and he was so _still_ all the time. Vacant, distracted, and eerily quiet when he did speak, unnervingly accurate about things he should have no knowledge of. Larra had told Sansa early on that this Brandon was new. Until recently, their brother Bran had been a more belligerent, frustrated version of the boy they both remembered, who had been impish and kind, playful, stubborn and protective, fiercely good and conscientious. The few attempts Larra had made to illuminate the reasons for the change in Brandon left Sansa with a headache and a queer sense of dread in the pit of her stomach she most often associated with Jon during the rare moments he spoke of Hard Home and the Night King.

It didn’t make any sense to her - she knew Jon wouldn’t struggle, after what he had seen; Sansa knew he would accept it. Whatever it was that had altered Bran to this unrecognisable, eerie ancient boy, perhaps it did not need to be understood; only accepted.

Strange as he now was, it was Brandon who settled back into life at Winterfell with peculiar ease. As if he had never left - or as if he had been anticipating his return for so long, he could shed all other worries and sit smiling blandly in front of a roaring fire in the clever wheeled-chair Maester Wolkan had had the carpenters craft for him, furs tucked over his legs, pale hands clasped elegantly in his lap, eyes bright and flat as he gazed unseeingly into the flames. If he was not in his chamber, gazing placidly into nothingness, then Brandon was to be found under the weirwood, furs tucked around him, a guard keeping an eye on him at a distance. The first time Sansa saw his eyes milky white and unresponsive, her heart had flown into her mouth, calling for a guard - Larra had strode over, gave a quiet word to the guard, tucked Brandon’s furs tighter, and left him alone.

She had calmly explained to Sansa that Bran was now the Three-Eyed Raven, the last of the ancient greenseers from Old Nan’s stories. They had travelled North, to the Land of Always-Winter, seeking the _previous_ Three-Eyed Raven, Bran’s guide and mentor, their guardian - and a Targaryen bastard, a figure from their history-books, the Bloodraven of legend, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch lost to the frozen wastes of the North. As the mantle of king passed from father to son, and the title of High Septon was bequeathed on his successor, so too was there always a Three-Eyed Raven. A being of extraordinary power - Larra called the Three-Eyed Raven the keeper of the world’s memory.

He knew all that had come before, and all that still might be, everything happening _now_ , and some things that might never be.

The transition from apprentice to master had been so recent, Brandon was still too overwhelmed to remember that he was Bran Stark, their impish, bright little brother. He was Brandon now. Brandon the Broken. The Three-Eyed Raven. As he was always meant to be.

Sansa knew that Jon had been resurrected by the Red Witch when mutineers had murdered him for decency. She knew it had pained him to talk about it, almost _ashamed_ for her to know, bewildered about why he had been brought back, for what reason, why he was deserving of another chance at life, when his choices had led to his murder… She had heard it from Ser Davos, his blunt, earnest voice thick with emotion, and knew he spoke the truth: She believed it.

When Larra told her that Brandon was the Three-Eyed Raven and saw the past more clearly than the present, Sansa could do nothing but believe her. Take it with a pinch of salt, and get on with things; there was no point gawping and marvelling and trying to figure out the minutiae of details when all her instincts - her training - had taught her to _focus_ on the tiny details that could unravel a lie or build an empire…

Lady Meera Reed confessing to Sansa that Larra was struggling was the easiest thing Sansa had to absorb, her sister’s transformation the easiest thing to adjust to. Though, perhaps _transformation_ was not the right word: as with Sansa, the potential had always been there. This new Larra was one who had had everything but her purest instincts stripped away.

Sansa wanted to help her. Wanted to take the time, and coax and gentle Larra the way Larra had the dire-eagle she had once nursed back to health, slowly and surely calming, befriending and nurturing it back to health…

She recalled how she had felt, all those long years in King’s Landing, when she had been aching for closeness, for companionship and…and _trust_ …to be able to relax, utterly, and be vulnerable without fear.

Until reuniting with Jon, Sansa had never experienced it.

Their experiences had been utterly opposite, Sansa in the glittering, malicious court, Larra in the barren, unforgiving True North, but they both shared the same thing: Isolation. Reliance on their own resources to survive impossible odds.

When one thought of things in such a way, Sansa felt far more confident in approaching her ferocious, eerie sister. She had been hesitant - because, truth be told, this stripped-back, brutal Larra unnerved her - frightened her, even. Those queer purple-blue eyes were sharp as daggers, brutal as direwolves, and saw _everything_ in a way even Brandon could not: he was too distracted by the history of the world, by what had once been. Larra was focused on what _was_ , now, in Winterfell, and nothing escaped her notice. It was a distinctively uncomfortable process, Larra levelling her violet gaze on a person. Because the warmth of Larra’s smile no longer softened that quelling gaze that stopped hard Northern lords in their tracks. The Lords who had already returned to Winterfell knew Larra was not to be trifled with. And sometimes, when Sansa approached too quickly and Larra pinned those violet eyes on her, Sansa stopped dead, her heart in her throat from fear. There was a predatory grace to Larra now, and an impenetrable wall of ice around her that would take a long time to thaw…

Sansa sat in the solar, the sound of the fire crackling in the grate soothing, its warmth lulling, watching as the firelight caught on the huge snowflakes idly whirling past in the dark beyond the diamond-paned windows dripping with condensation. Whenever Larra came to the solar, and stayed for any duration, she cracked a window open and sat beneath it - whether or not there was sleet or snow or a clear white sky; she could not abide the claustrophobic heat emanating from Winterfell’s heated walls, the water from the hot-springs sluicing through the walls…keeping the North alive through the harshest winters…

A soft smile came to Sansa’s eyes, and she pushed away from the worn oak desk, aching as she rose for the first time in hours. She remembered how tired Father used to look in the evenings, but he always made time to invite someone to the high table and listen to their lives… Tonight, though, she had asked for a simple supper to be brought to the solar later in the evening. The days were getting shorter and shorter. Her lessons reminded her that sometimes, in the very heart of winter this far North, the light of day could last as long as three hours together, before the world was plunged into darkness again.

They only had to look for the days growing longer again, to know that spring was on the way.

Until then, they endured.

But, Sansa thought, striding through the castle’s more private corridors and chambers - those devoted to the Stark family itself, affording them privacy when the entire North congregated at Winterfell for the winter - they could also _thrive_.

Jon had helped Sansa. Whatever magic had warmed his heart again had started to soothe hers. Now, she passed on the gentle, steady strength with which Jon loved, and protected… That was what he was, Sansa knew; a protector. _The shield that guards the realms of Men_ …

She hoped, not for the first or even the hundredth time, that Jon would return home soon. She remembered his reaction when his eyes had rested on her at Castle Black for the first time, grubby and frozen in the courtyard amid the gentle snows…how he had stopped still as any statue in the crypt, his lips parting in quiet awe, and stepped back as if stunned by a physical blow, his long scarred fingers curling as if already holding her close to him… He had not even _blinked_ as he stepped down into the courtyard, never even looked away from her for a single heartbeat, and Sansa had forgotten any physical discomfort - and distrust of being touched - and threw herself into his strong arms. Thrown herself at Jon, tall as an oak and resilient as any weirwood, fierce and bearded now, his hair freshly shorn, the wind flirting with his cropped curls, his face pale but his dark eyes glittering with wonder, grief and love as he gazed at her, sat before the hearth with soup to warm her hands…he had laughed when she had choked on the bad ale he drank so easily, crinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes, his white teeth flashing in his bearded face, and it looked strange, seeing him smile at her - _because_ of her: His smiles had been for Larra.

Sansa couldn’t wait to see Jon’s reaction when he realised Larra was home.

She was still of two minds: Send a raven to Dragonstone, telling him - or let him find out upon his return.

On the one hand, she wanted him to know - to speed his return to Winterfell.

On the other, Sansa refused to distract Jon from doing what was necessary - for his survival, for their freedom; for the Long Night, and the wars to come.

Larra had not asked her to send a raven; nor had she expressively forbidden Sansa from doing so. And Sansa had not brought it up to her - a little in part due to her dread of what Larra’s choice would be. Because Sansa had to respect her choice, and her insight.

The fire crackled and Sansa tidied her working desk, before sending a maid ahead to prepare, and she shivered as she exited the solar - she had not realised just how hot the fire had been burning - and strode through the castle, appreciative of the fact that she had enjoyed the entire day without sight or sound from Lord Baelish. She had given instructions Littlefinger should be…kept _occupied_. Because Sansa did not want him too near her; but she could not afford to send him away - he was simply too dangerous to let out of her sight.

As long as he was at Winterfell, she could anticipate what he would get up to: Exactly what he always had, manipulate, murder and blackmail his way to getting what he wanted. _Her_. Control of the North through her. Northern armies combined with the might of the Vale to snatch the Iron Throne from Cersei. Litter Westeros with the bodies of anyone who stood in his way - and perhaps especially those who had helped him climb onto that unsightly chair.

But she was glad of the reprieve from his constant presence, from the shrewd, greedy gaze and the smirk she was desperate to slap off his face. Her lips burned whenever she thought of his presumptuous kiss, made her shudder with discomfort, more than memories of the King’s Landing bread riots - because Littlefinger was far more dangerous.

He didn’t like Larra, Sansa could tell by the way his sharp eyes lingered on her. Didn’t like her presence in Winterfell. Not her furs, not her handiness with weapons - or how she had taken the measure of him the first time she laid eyes on him.

Jon, Larra, Bran…her family had returned. There were now more and more people to strengthen the Stark hold over the North, to strengthen _her_ ; more people Littlefinger would have to find creative - or perhaps not subtle at all - ways to despatch in pursuit of his desires. Sansa, the Iron Throne.

At this time of afternoon, Sansa could usually find Larra in the training yard. She drilled with different groups of young people, with spears, bows and knives. And often, Sansa had watched from the gallery, Larra would issue drills, correcting posture and grip, encouraging people and setting high expectations people strove to meet, while her hands were busy with a hunting knife, whittling a basket of arrows to be delivered to the team of fletchers. Even stood still, Larra was never idle. It was a strange thing to watch Larra, and Sansa paused in the gallery once again, gazing down into the training yard illuminated by fires crackling here and there, and heard her sister’s voice before she saw her. Larra had picked up languages north of the Wall. Sansa had not yet asked about it, but Larra understood the dialects of several of the wildling clans - there were seven different languages spoken among the Free Folk - and Larra acted as interpreter for the Magnar of the Thenns, who spoke only in the Old Tongue of the First Men. Sansa heard Larra’s voice, but did not recognise her words: Peeking over the railing, Sansa finally found Larra, amid a cluster of wildlings, almost indistinguishable because of their furs - and they were… _laughing_. They were playing a _game_ \- one Sansa could remember her siblings being scolded for playing when they were little. Holding their fingers out, snatching out their hands to slap each other’s knuckles. Wildlings, and their children clinging to their furs, all laughed richly, chatting in their native dialects, as they watched Larra engaged in the game with a young Thenn, tall and pale as a weirwood with a shaved head, dazzling sapphire-blue eyes, wicked ceremonial scars and an insane grin. They were playing without gloves.

“ _Why_?” Sansa asked with a mixture of curiosity and exasperation, eyeing her sister’s pale, scarred hands - skin reddened from the Thenn’s ruthless slaps - as the wildings dispersed, uneasy in the presence of someone who was so completely _other_ , a southern Lady in her finery, the King’s sister… Not like Larra, who could pass as one of them, who had learned their secrets and their dialects, their culture and respected the cold war they had been fighting for years against the Night King, because she was also a warrior who fought for the living…

“Because it hurts more in the cold,” Larra said simply, as she trudged rather reluctantly inside, her eyes watchful as they entered the castle. Sansa had noticed that Larra was always rather unsettled by the idea of returning inside, as if she could not breathe freely within the ageless stone walls that had protected their family for thousands of years. The open window in the solar; resting in the rocking-chair rather than her feather bed - Larra was uncomfortable in their home, and Sansa knew it.

She rolled her eyes slightly at Larra’s answer, glancing at her sister, whose eyes glowed vividly violet as the torchlight caught them.

“Have they said anything?” Sansa asked curiously.

“About what?”

“The Northerners have me to bring complaints to; the Valemen have Lord Royce, who brings the few issues that he cannot settled to me…the wildlings had Jon,” Sansa said, frowning slightly. When it came to the wildlings, Sansa knew the respect they had for Jon would not pass on to her simply because she was his sister: His status as their leader was founded on his being a fellow survivor of the Night King’s hordes, as someone who had died to give them a chance at _life_ … Sansa knew how to deal with the Valemen, who, as proud and honourable as they were, were well-behaved boys in comparison to the hard Northern lords… And compared to the wildlings, well… The Northern lords seemed like child’s play.

The wildlings were utterly foreign to her; they might as well have come from Asshai, for all Sansa knew of their languages and culture. They were utterly intimidating. But Larra…she had lived in the True North, and the wildings had appreciated that from the moment Larra, Bran and Meera had reached Winterfell. They could see it in Larra’s furs; in the way she held herself; in how swiftly she drew her short hunting knife - rather than her Valyrian steel sword - because it was cumbersome, not to mention unwise, to unsheathe a longsword and fight in snowdrifts. The True North was in Larra, in a way it never could be in Sansa: Larra appreciated their cultures, had adapted some of what she had learned to survive, and respected their strength and ferocity, their _freedom_.

Larra treated every person she met as her equal - because she had grown up being treated as inferior.

“Be assured, if the Free Folk have any issues, they’ll be dealt with swiftly and brutally,” Larra said, her pretty lips pursing in wry amusement. “The Thenns hate the Hornfoots; the Hornfoots hate the Ice River clans. Everyone hates the cave people… But they’re not so blinded by their hatred that they can’t see that they must work together if they want a future. Especially not after Hard Home… You don’t need to worry about the Free Folk, Sansa. They settle their own affairs…and as soon as they’re able, they’ll pack themselves off home to hack each other to bits over one perceived insult or another.”

“Yes, but until then…”

“Until then, they’ll work together, because it’s in their interests to do so,” Larra said softly. “Never underestimate what people are capable of if they feel it’s in their best interests… But they’ll never kneel. This is not their home, their lands… They’ll do what they must, fight with us…but they’ll always yearn for the boundless snow-meadows and clear glittering air of the True North, the freedom to live their own lives…”

“They won’t want to stay south of the Wall?” Sansa asked curiously. All her life, she had been warned by Old Nan’s stories of wildling raids, brutal wild-men carrying off livestock, castle-forged steel and innocent young girls.

“Some might,” Larra said thoughtfully. “There will be more than a few orphans before the Dawn comes…they’ll either adapt and kneel, or make their way home - and fight every day of their lives to survive.”

“Who would choose such a life?”

“There’s freedom in living that way,” Larra said, her voice faraway, almost dreamy. “It’s brutal and relentless, but you are beholden to no-one… You are stripped to your fiercest nature, left with nothing but what is so precious you would kill to protect it. It’s a simple way of life - and it is honest.”

“It sounds rather liberating,” Sansa said honestly, thinking of King’s Landing and the tangled nest of vipers, thorny blooms and mangy lions that was the Court. Everything had been cloaked in deception - even deceptions.

“In a way,” Larra said gloomily, keeping pace with Sansa even as she led the way through the bowels of the castle, the torch held by their guard guttering with every open window they passed, snow drifting past idly, the nip of the wind chasing away the worst of the suffocating heat of the walls steaming softly, vapour eddying at their feet. Winterfell had never been so atmospheric as when winter finally came, and the castle itself exhibited proof of why it had been built in such a way - and endured so long. The heated walls of the castle would keep the people of the North alive throughout the harshest winter: The difference between life and death in winter was often warmth, as Sansa could now attest to. She had almost died of the cold several times on her flight to Castle Black. Sharing what little warmth they had with Theon; marvelling as Podrick struck tinder so easily to coax a flame into life-giving ruby warmth.

But Sansa was a novice compared to Larra.

“You miss it,” Sansa said, glancing at Larra, who raised her violet eyes to Sansa’s face, her own expression rather grim.

“I knew what I had to do,” was all she said. Then her dark brows nudged toward each other, and she gazed around the corridor. “Where are we going?”

Sansa cleared her throat, as they entered a familiar corridor known only to those who knew where it was. A stretch of wall had been carved by Stark stonemasons centuries ago, possibly longer, a rather fanciful depiction of Brandon Stark’s settlement of the area that became Winterfell, with its godswood and its thermal pools and the irrigation system that kept their walls warm - kept the winter at bay… They had been raised on the story, and on this mural: They knew Brandon Stark by the direwolf hulking behind him, predatory and protective of the first Stark King in the North.

The torchlight threw queer shadows against the mural, and Sansa’s heartbeat quickened as she imagined the figures coming to life, Brandon turning his stern, unyielding gaze - so like Jon’s, so like Father’s - toward her, the enormous direwolf bristling and snarling as it sensed danger, bonded to Brandon as Lady had once been to Sansa... Brandon Stark had to have been a hard man, harder even than Jon - and as _good_ as Jon, as gentle and brave and as strong - to unite the First Men, to ally with the Children of the Forest, to beat back the White Walkers, raise the Wall, initiate the Night’s Watch and lay the first foundations for Winterfell… Thousands of years later, here they were, Brandon’s direct descendants, preparing to finish what he had started so long ago…

Sansa turned to her sister, and said, rather bluntly - because she was home, and Larra did not appreciate minced words - “I appreciate that weeks cannot undo the work of years…”

“But?” Larra said, her lips twitching with irony, and Sansa was thrown back to Jon’s laughter interrupting their squabble - “ _anything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit_.”

“ _But_ you are in dire need of a bath.”

Larra sighed heavily, her scowl heavy as she glared at the heavy oak door banded with steel hinges worked into the form of snarling direwolf heads. Her fingers twitched, as if itching to reach for her weapon - an instinct Sansa doubted would ever die - because she was in discomfort, anxious… Sansa couldn’t help but wonder why - and was clever enough not to dare ask, remembering some of the wisdom Meera had shared on her relentless, brave sister.

“I haven’t had a bath in years,” Larra murmured, almost to herself.


	19. Balm

**Valyrian Steel**

_19_

_Balm_

* * *

The door was unbolted, and steam billowed out. It was the sultriest place in the entire castle, and made Sansa think of the capricious summer lightning storms that occasionally took hold of King’s Landing, when weeks of breathless humidity had threatened to choke the city - broken by fierce storms that drenched everything, scouring away the dust and muck, settling cool air across the city that made Sansa think of the tranquil chill of the godswood. She had anticipated every storm for that brief moment, the lungfuls of crisp, clean air that reminded her of _home_.

Now, she wandered into the baths, already stripping off her fur-trimmed gloves and heavy cloak, sweltering in the humid heat, as Larra reluctantly followed. The guard stayed beyond the strong door, and Larra bolted it from the inside. Sansa waited, watching, as Larra turned from the door, eyeing the vast chamber. There were several pools, of varying sizes and depths, with the smallest bubbling deliciously - clever stonework meant hot coals could be placed inside the walls of that particular pool, making the water even hotter than the regular pools, which steamed beguilingly, the water eddying delicately as it flowed from the careful irrigation system - pipes separated water-flow so that each pool had its own source and its own overflow spill, ensuring the warm water was always _clean_.

Sansa had weighed the expense, and had candles littered around the large chamber, making the steam glow and the carvings on the long walls flicker strangely.

“Do you remember what Old Nan used to say, whenever one of us was overwrought?” Sansa asked, and a sad smile lingered in the shadows at the corners of Larra’s beautiful lips.

“A long soak in warm water is the best balm for battered spirits and weary bones,” Larra said, and Sansa smiled softly.

“The first thing I did when we reclaimed Winterfell was to come down here, and soak it all away,” Sansa told her sister quietly. Her lips twitched, as she added, “All those years in King’s Landing, I had forgotten, you know…the _cold_. It was strange to get used to it again… Only when I immersed myself in the water did I realise how cold I had been for weeks… I thawed myself out, soaked everything away… When we were little, we used to come down here, all of us…we would play. And only you could gentle Arya long enough to comb the tangles from her hair. We’d wrap ourselves in terrycloth before the fire to dry off, playing games… You used to braid my hair.”

Larra gazed at the huge fireplace, where once their family had enjoyed playing as they dried off, Jon’s and Larra’s hair curling riotously, Sansa’s glowing as vibrantly as the flames, Arya always sitting too close and coming out in a rash from the heat, baby Rickon carried back to the nursery, fast asleep in Larra’s arms, his tawny hair soft and silky, his ferocious little face relaxed in sleep. “I didn’t think you remembered.”

“I do,” Sansa sighed softly. “I remember everything. The last words you said to me, do you remember? ‘You’re smarter than this, Sansa’… You don’t know how those words haunted me…”

“Good,” Larra said, her gaze unflinching as she stared at Sansa. “You were smart enough to survive King’s Landing. You’re the first Stark in generations to be able to boast that.”

“I was angry with Father, when they came for him,” Sansa confessed suddenly, staring at her fierce, clever sister. “Furious about Lady…about him trying to take me from the capital. He tried to get us out and I -“

“It doesn’t matter,” Larra said quietly, her voice gentle but unyielding. “You’re home. That’s what Father would care about. You’re home, at Winterfell; you’re safe… And you and Jon did what no-one else could. We can fight together for a future because of you. Your parents would be very proud of you. I am.”

Relief and pride swept through Sansa’s body, sparkling like beads of incandescent light through her blood, and she smiled sweetly, allowing Larra to see how honoured, how pleased she was to be thought well of by her.

“I…thought perhaps you were angry with me.”

Larra’s eyebrows rose, her violet eyes widening, and her lips parted in stunned incredulity. “What on earth do I have to be angry at you about? I was teasing you about the gowns.”

“I know that,” Sansa smiled softly, but it faded at Larra’s curious, guarded look - as if anticipating something horrific. “But I have taken the role you trained all your life to fill.”

Larra sighed, her gaze flitting over Sansa’s face. “I am _glad_ that you have taken my place… When we returned to Winterfell, I could not have walked into the Great Hall and been what people needed me to be. But you are.”

Larra crouched down at the edge of the steaming pool, on the balls of her feet, perfectly balanced, with Dark Sister tucked out of the way and the hilt of her hunting-knife gleaming at her back amid her unkempt furs. Her face glowed pale as moonlight in the candlelight, her hair black as night in the shadows, and Sansa watched silently as Larra reached out, sighing heavily, and dipped the fingertips of one hand into the warm water. They sent delicate ripples across the surface of the water, sparkling in the candlelight, and the soft lapping noise was soothing as Larra idly flicked her fingers through the water.

When she spoke next, it was to the water, to the steam rising around her, obscuring her features, making her look eerie and out of place, her voice faraway and devastated: “I walk these halls, and…I know every stone, every passageway, every tapestry and tower, they have not changed. But the halls are filled with strangers, and I feel…” She turned to Sansa, and the candlelight caught her violet eyes, making them glow like amethysts, wet with tears that did not fall, her features solemn, heartbroken; her voice caught the longer she spoke, thick with feeling. “I feel as if I had died, after all. As if I am a ghost, haunting the halls of Winterfell, and everyone I knew and loved has gone ahead without me. I feel as if I have been left behind, and I know they are gone, and yet everywhere I go, I cannot help but look for them. I do not recognise our home.”

“Or me,” Sansa murmured, struck by the depth of her sister’s devastation.

“You are who you’ve always had it in you to be...” Larra said, her gaze steady as she held Sansa’s eye. She sniffed delicately, her lips twisting as she fought to control the emotion threatening to overwhelm her. “I haven’t…had the _time_ to think about it, ever since Edd told me.”

Sansa blinked, startled, and devastation crept through her body, leaving nothing but raw anguish in its place. “ _Edd_ told you?”

Larra cleared her throat softly. “When we reached Castle Black. Edd spoke of the King in the North - I thought he meant Robb…” For a heartbeat, Larra smiled, and it was a harrowing sight, her eyes glittering. “He had to tell me. He had to tell me everything. The Red Wedding, Rickon…all of it. Here I am, home, safe and sound with Bran…” Her eyes glittered, but the tears did not fall; her lips twitched, and she sniffed delicately. She closed her eyes, and after a few seconds, she whispered in a dull voice filled with grief, “They’re gone but they’re everywhere.”

Sansa’s eyes burned. “You truly knew nothing, until weeks ago?”

“I lived with someone who was all-seeing…who parted with information like a miser with gold…” Larra said grimly. “The ink was already dry… He knew I could do nothing, so what would it do to tell me?”

After a few moments, Sansa said, “It was a backhanded kindness, not telling you.”

“Eventually the hammer had to fall… Hope is the only thing stronger than fear,” Larra said, sniffing delicately again, her voice stronger, clearer. She turned to Sansa, saying, “And I needed even the smallest glimmer of it, to get us back to the Wall and beyond it. If I’d known then…about Robb, and his poor wife, and their little baby…about Rickon…and you…about _Jon_ … If I had known all of that…”

“You wouldn’t have stopped fighting,” Sansa said, with fierce certainty.

Larra’s lips twitched into a humourless smile. “You sound so sure.”

“You’ve never given up in your entire life, not at anything. You’ve had to fight for everything…” Sansa said, ashamed for her mother. The closer she had grown to Jon over these months, the more ashamed she was of her mother’s treatment of the best man she had known since Father’s death. “You weren’t about to stop fighting when Bran needed you most.” Sansa sighed, and murmured, “I wish Mother was here.” Larra gave her a look, her eyebrows raised, as if simultaneously compassionate of Sansa’s desire to see her mother, and relieved Lady Catelyn was _not_ around to sneer down her nose at the bastard twins. Sansa smiled warmly, “The bastards she despised are the two people who did what she could not: Protected her children. I fought through seven _Hells_ to get to Jon; and you kept Bran alive against all odds. She owes you both an apology.”

“She loved you fiercely, and if not for her I would not have you. To me, she was a harsh and ungodly woman…” Sansa did not look away, as she might once have; because this was Larra’s truth, and Sansa knew it to be true. Her mother had wished the twins dead since the moment she arrived at Winterfell with Robb to find the babies already ensconced in the nursery. Larra sighed, shaking her head slightly, her voice grim when she said, “She did not deserve her death.”

Sansa’s mother had never had a kind thought for or act towards the twins all their lives. To hear Larra speak well of her…

It was Larra who had raised Rickon, and protected Bran. She had abandoned their ancestral home to protect her half-brothers. And she had done it without question, because as fiercely as Lady Catelyn had hated Larra and Jon, Larra had loved her brothers and sisters.

“You didn’t deserve the way she treated you,” Sansa said quietly. “All those years in King’s Landing…I started to realise that Cersei treated me with the same viciousness and contempt that Mother threw at you every chance she could. All because Father loved your mother more.”

“It’s interesting to hear you say that,” Larra said, her eyes glittering. “You were once scandalised that Father could ever love anyone but your mother.”

“I’m not quite as naïve as I once was,” Sansa scoffed, smiling delicately, and Larra’s eyes shone as she smiled in response, amused but also saddened that Sansa’s innocence had been stripped away so brutally. “Your mother must have been magnificent, whoever she was, for Father to love her so fiercely.”

Larra’s face, already snow-white but for her constellation of dramatic freckles, turned greyish-green as she stared at Sansa, who frowned, bewildered by the visceral reaction. Sansa had thought it a _compliment_ to Larra’s mother - if she had been _anything_ like Larra, she had to have been truly extraordinary.

“Larra?” she asked uncertainly.

Larra faltered, staring at Sansa as her skin lost the sickly tinge just as quickly as it came, and hitched an uncomfortable smile on her lips. It did not reach her eyes, but her tone was gentle and coaxing as she said, “Let’s have that bath, before the candles burn themselves out.”

One by one, Larra unstrapped her weapons - a small _pile_ of them accumulated at the edge of the pool, clacking and clanging, startling Sansa with every secret hiding-place as yet more weapons were withdrawn from the folds of thick furs.

And then Larra shed her furs. She shed a tunic that glittered black like thousands of tiny beetles, and stood in worn, knitted longjons, Old Nan’s stitching utterly familiar to Sansa even after all this time; they were made of fine musk-ox wool, the warmest yarn in the world, long-sleeved, reaching the ankles, buttoned down the front from belly to neck. Or they were usually buttoned; Larra’s appeared to be sewn together. The longjons were heavily darned, and they hung from her slender frame, where once they would have fit snugly. She had to reach for her hunting knife to slice through the stitches before she could shimmy and wriggle out of the longjons.

Sansa couldn’t help it. She gasped.

Jon was the shield that guarded the realms of men.

Larra was the shield that guarded Bran.

And like any effective shield, she was battered.

Even at first glance, Sansa knew there was not a single limb or part of Larra’s body that was not scarred.

Some were burns, hastily sealing a messy wound; some were neatly-stitched slashes. Some scars were white and old, some still pink, shining, angry and raised. One on her right outer-forearm slashed from elbow to wrist, an inch wide at its widest point, shining and jagged; an arrow-wound to her lower-abdomen had been neatly stitched to a tiny pucker. There was a slash below her collarbone, a triple slash to the base of her throat, and the firelight caught a milky-white scar beneath her ear toward the back of her neck. One thigh showed the damage of a knife-wound; her calf caused nausea to build in Sansa’s stomach, remembering Father’s wound and his limp as they dragged him up the steps of the Sept, stabbed in the back of the leg by a spear… Even her hip had been slashed; her arms were a criss-cross of healed scars, and one wicked scar jagged from hip to kneecap, a curving, slice that might have cost her life - it had been a clean wound, a sharp blade…

And her _back_ …

When Sansa had left Winterfell, Larra’s back had still been healing from a flogging ordered by Cersei. Larra had struck Joffrey in the nursery, for tormenting Tommen and Rickon. Now, Sansa was filled with pride and smug elation that Larra had dealt Joffrey that sharp slap - the only time she had ever hit one of them in the face, rather than round the back of the head as a warning, and probably the only time in Joffrey’s life he had ever been struck for his foulness - but at the time, Sansa had been mortified.

Sansa knew now that Cersei had had Larra flogged as much for smacking Joffrey as for reminding King Robert so much of Lyanna Stark - of a time in his life he had fancied himself in love with Lyanna, and happy. Sansa remembered the way Robert’s jaw had hung agape at the sight of Larra in her feast gown, frost-bitten hellebores braided into her hair, her eyes sparkling, vibrant, her smile flirtatious and charming…

Cersei had never mentioned Larra again, and likely never even thought of her: But Myrcella had cried when they learned the Ironborn had taken Winterfell. Larra had painted her portrait, taken the Princess to collect a winter posy from the godswood, and gifted Tommen a kitten from her own Northern Longhaired cat Cinder’s litter. They had adored Sansa’s bastard half-sister. Most children did.

Sansa had not remembered that Larra had been flogged. Not really. They had left Winterfell before Larra was healed. Before Sansa had seen either the damage, or the scarring left behind. Now she saw it.

It looked like a weirwood had been scarred into Larra’s back, a tangle of shining white limbs across her shoulder-blades, a few deep slashes down her spine creating a sturdy trunk.

She was scarred, and _so_ slender, but not deathly thin as some of the wildlings were, and Sansa knew it was Larra’s tiny but frequent meals that made all the difference - she looked healthy, not an ounce of extra fat on her, her musculature not overly pronounced but visibly _strong_ ; her breasts were high, unblemished and very pretty, not as heavy as Sansa’s because of her weight loss, her dainty, upturned nipples the colour of iced plums rather than the rosy apricot of Sansa’s. There was even a scar beneath Larra’s left breast, tucked down amid her ribs.

“Sansa…are you alright?” Larra asked, her voice gentle - absurdly kind, considering Sansa was gaping at her naked body in horror.

“There are…so many,” she breathed, her eyes flitting from one impossible scar to another. Larra’s side was still healing from a vicious bruise.

Larra stared back at her for a long time. Quietly, she told Sansa, “Every one of them tells a story of my strength in surviving.”

She said it in such a way, Sansa knew Larra felt no shame in any of her scars. They had been hard-won. They were proof of her strength - her _survival_. That strength emboldened Sansa to wriggle out of her own clothes - Larra’s lips twitched, and Sansa heard her soft chuckle as she approached, naked and unabashed, to help unlace Sansa out of her fortified gown, the many layers she wore beneath it - a silk chemise to protect her skin, a fleece-line tunic and musk-ox wool underdress for warmth, two pairs of wool stockings, quilted petticoats, fur-lined leather boots to keep her feet warm and dry, a silk neckerchief to protect her neck from irritation from the feathered collar with silver direwolves clasped nose-to-nose. Larra’s scarred fingers were nimble and as gentle as Sansa remembered as she unknotted ties, pinched clasps loose and unthreaded hidden buckles.

“You’ve armoured yourself well,” Larra murmured, her eyes flashing like dark amethyst embers, and Sansa took a breath that struggled to fill her lungs as Larra lifted the last, stone-grey silk chemise over Sansa’s head, revealing her naked body. She was not slender like Larra, she had been well-fed all her life - the journey to Castle Black had been one rare instance that had shown her what hunger and terror truly were - but her waist was still trim, her limbs supple and lean; there was a softness to her curves that brought to mind Larra’s old figure, when her embrace had been all warmth and bosom.

Like her sister, Sansa’s body was scarred. Not heavily, the way Larra’s body had evidently been used as a shield, but her body was no longer unblemished, the injuries not nearly as harrowing and jagged and life-threatening - they had been inflicted to elicit pain and fear, rather than to cause lasting damage or drain the life from her. The weeks she had been prisoner in her own home, Sansa had gained several scars, and compared to Larra’s they were almost laughable, so small and neat - but their size did not diminish the horror she had endured to earn them.

She was healing. One day, the angry pink scars would turn white, like Larra’s. They would always be there, a reminder - of her _strength_ , of what she had it in her to survive.

They were still new, though, and sometimes, when she caught sight of one of them as she dressed, she was startled by their presence marring her skin. And she often thought, if her skin had reflected every emotional wound inflicted by Joffrey, people would stop looking at her with yearning and open lust, and realise just how much she had endured - they would recoil in horror at the sight of her, rather than attempting to undress her with their gaze, wondering what it would feel like to mount her. She _looked_ untouched, pure… Beneath the skin, she was as scarred as Larra.

They had both endured the impossible, and survived it against the odds.

They were more alike now, through their own experiences, than they had ever been before. Two ferocious she-wolves of Winterfell.

Larra’s face went cold and hard as marble as her glowing violet eyes traced the delicate scars on Sansa’s body. She was the first person Sansa had shown; she bathed and dressed herself in privacy now, behind a folding screen, her maids merely bringing her clean garments and leaving them to warm draped by the fire in her chamber, waiting for Sansa to finish lacing herself up before tending to her hair and nails.

“I hope it was _lingering_ ,” Larra growled low, dangerous, her eyes wrathful violet flame.

“It was. And well-deserved,” Sansa told her gently. She forced a smile, and found herself brushing off the agony that temporarily squeezed her heart. She reached out to touch Larra’s arm, leading her to the smallest, shallowest pool where soft towels had been laid down over the stone lip of the bath to rest against, and earthenware pots and jars, delicate glass bottles and a woven basket full of combs, brushes, exquisite Qartheen _snips_ and loofas had been arranged beside a cluster of fat beeswax candles, a delicate glazed candleholder melting solid perfumed oils to fragrance the entire chamber with warm vanilla, fig and camomile.

“What is all this?” Larra asked, more curious than suspicious, eyeing the arrangement of pots and bottles, brushes and the two simple chairs arranged beside the roaring fire beside the shallow pool, piles of clothing neatly folded in preparation for them, terrycloth towels draped over a rack to warm.

“Gifts, from Lord Manderly,” Sansa said, her smile brightening as she glanced at Larra, who was slowly lowering herself into the warm water, wincing ever so slightly at the unfamiliarity, the bite of the hot water against her abused skin. Sansa plaited her hair over her shoulder, then pinned it in place like a crown around her head to prevent it getting wet, and sank into the water with Larra, sighing as she ducked under the water to her neck. “He sent them after we had reclaimed Winterfell. Cosmetics, fabric and fine trinkets for me, barrels of citrus from Dorne and a high harp from Lys; for Jon, leather and furs, barrels of snow-crab, cod, Arbour wine, cheese from the Reach and word that the Stark fleet had been completed, ready to set sail… I wonder what he’ll send for you; you were always his favourite.”

“Well, he always had exquisite taste,” Larra teased, and Sansa smirked.

“You’re right. He knew your worth, even if nobody else cared to see past your birth,” Sansa said, knowing that she was guilty of it, too. “How long has it been since you unwound your hair?”

“You mean how long since I washed and combed it?” Larra smirked, her eyes glittering.

Larra wore her hair completely up, braided and threaded with knotted leather cords to keep everything in place. Some of the coils of the braids resembled the links of a chain. And because it was all braided up, there was no telling how long it was. Remembering how patient and gentle Larra had always been with Arya and Rickon, Sansa worked tirelessly with gentle fingers, unknotting the leather cords, using her fingers to comb out the braids.

It took a long time, and Sansa couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of Larra’s wild mane of kinky, bizarre hair, some of it finger-combed, sticking out at odd angles after being wound up so long. She went in with a large-toothed comb to gentle tease out the worst of any tangles; and then the first dunk of Larra’s head under water to soak through her hair. With a large bottle of vinegar infused with lavender, lemon verbena, rosemary and parsley to cleanse the dirt and build-up, and a finer-toothed comb, Sansa treated Larra’s scalp and hair, running the comb from root to tip until there was not a single tangle. Then, because Shae always had, Sansa picked up the tiny pair of Qartheen _snips_ \- delicate, horrifyingly sharp embroidery scissors - and trimmed an inch off the ends of Larra’s hair, no more and no less, so the ends were healthy.

Sansa had always enjoyed having her hair washed by Shae, the way she would massage Sansa’s scalp with her fingertips and use just the right amount of pressure, and once the vinegar rinse had cleaned the worst from Larra’s hair, it was Sansa’s turn to treat Larra. She opened one of the jars she hadn’t been able to bear the idea of using, the perfumed cream-coloured balm evoking memories that, until Larra’s reappearance, were too painful to bear. The same perfumer that shipped his wares to White Harbour had an aterlier in King’s Landing, highly favoured by the court: All the time Sansa had been at court, she had been provided with soaps, hair-balms, rinses, cosmetics, solid perfumes and scents from him. One word from Lord Manderly and the same orange-blossom scent Sansa always wore was shipped to White Harbour for her, along with others to tempt her - she was sister to the King in the North, the Lady of Winterfell, after all. She was an opportunity to expand his business.

The soft, buttery soap was heavily scented - and reminded Sansa of _Larra_ : The scent of the winter sun melting snow and warming wild heather.

The soap was perfumed, according to the note handwritten by the perfumer himself that had come with the jar, with heather, hellebores - the hardy Northern rose that was Larra’s favourite - blackcurrant, oakmoss, patchouli, vanilla, camellia and the wild Northern meadow orchid. It was a scent _made_ for Larra. It had broken Sansa’s heart, the first time she smelled it; and Jon’s face had turned grim when she had offered him the jar - he remembered, too, the way Larra had always smelled of melting snow and wildflowers glittering with frost, of tempting steamed puddings, hot drinks and dried herbs. She had smelled of warmth and wildness.

Sansa treated Larra’s hair with lashings of the balm, massaging her scalp until Larra was leaning back into Sansa in the warm water, the closest Sansa had yet seen her to being relaxed. She used a jug to rinse the balm from her hair, the suds and cloudy water carried away by the clever piping, and Sansa swept the fine-toothed comb through Larra’s wet hair one last time… Her hair fell to her bottom, now, longer than Sansa’s, dark as raven-wings, and springy, riotous curls were already starting to form as Sansa combed through it.

“How do you feel?” Sansa asked, smiling, as she dropped the comb in the basket, digging among the small flannels, loofahs and bars of soap.

“ _Deliciously_ clean,” Larra hummed. She already looked happier for her clean hair, soft from the hot water and perhaps from Sansa’s treatment. She was being taken care of - she was allowing Sansa to take care of her.

“When your hair has dried, there are some oils to help keep its shine,” Sansa said, smiling, pleased by the soft, warm look on Larra’s face. “But I suppose you’ll braid it up again.”

“Not tonight,” Larra said softly, smiling lazily.

“I…can tend your nails, if you’d like?” Sansa said dubiously, eyeing Larra’s scarred but elegant hands. Her sister chuckled low in her throat.

“Thank you, no,” she said softly, her eyes glittering. One of her fingernails was black with bruising; scars cobwebbed the backs of her palms, and Sansa remembered the time Larra had almost lost a finger, the scar from Maester Luwin’s stitches far older than any of the others. Larra had always used her hands - for gardening, carpentry, swordplay, archery, hunting… She had never been vain of her hands, which Sansa thought were beautiful, because she had never been praised for her beauty - or anything else. Praise was reserved for Ned Stark’s true-born daughters, not his bastard.

“Shall we go into another pool?”

“I think so; I haven’t swum in ages,” Larra smiled, and they stepped out of the small bath, the steam and sultriness embracing their bodies before they dipped into the largest, steaming pool where once they had all played and splashed and made a lot of noise and mess, the little siblings sitting on Robb’s and Jon’s shoulders to wrestle each other into the water, giggles echoing deliciously off the carved walls.

Larra was a stronger swimmer than Sansa, even after years without practise; Sansa paddled, while Larra sluiced through the water.

“Were there any hot-springs beyond the Wall?” Sansa asked curiously.

“A few, I imagine,” Larra said softly. “There were rivers even the Land of Always-Winter could not freeze…but we didn’t have the time or inclination to follow them to their source. Most of the hot-springs fed networks of rivers through subterranean caves… Perhaps that’s where Brandon the Builder got the idea for Winterfell’s walls in the first place… He and his people would have certainly known how to find the hot-spring caves…”

Sansa paddled over to the side of the pool to rest - she was _sedentary_ by nature and design, not like the active and fiercely strong Larra, who swam lengths of the pool like a fish, her long hair a dark shadow behind her - and the glitter of black beetles caught her eye. She reached out of the pool for the tunic Larra had shed, and up close, Sansa realised it wasn’t beetles, but thousands of tiny discs made of a strange, shining black stone that refracted firelight eerily. She picked up the tunic, which was heavier than it looked, and examined it closely.

“How did you make this?” she asked, and Larra glanced over her shoulder, before swimming closer.

“It’s bearskin,” she sighed, gazing at the vest without affection. “The threads were Summer’s shed hairs… The Children taught me how to smelt obsidian to make the rings.”

Sansa blinked, her lips parting. “You made every single one?”

“I had a lot of time,” Larra said grimly.

“So…this is what Jon has risked his life for?” Sansa mused, passing her fingertips over the smooth, strange rings.

“Obsidian,” Larra sighed, nodding.

“ _Dragonglass_. Is it true, does it kill White Walkers?”

“It does,” Larra said, her eyes like violet flames as she gazed unerringly at Sansa’s face. “And it blocks their weapons when they try to skewer you.”

Sansa didn’t like the implication. She asked anxiously, “Is it worth it?”

“You know Jon would be here if it wasn’t,” Larra said gloomily.

“I don’t like the way the bannermen are grumbling about him leaving.”

“Even though you agree.”

“They’re annoyed their king left: I’m terrified he won’t return,” Sansa confessed. “I want him _home_.”

“Let them grumble; it’s the ones who _don’t_ air their grievances in the Great Hall that I’m keeping an eye on,” Larra said, showing her wisdom, the voices of both Ned Stark and Maester Luwin echoing in her words. “The worse the storms get, the fewer grain deliveries that arrive, the looming threat of an army they can’t possibly begin to comprehend…they’re frightened. Knights and lords…they’re like children, really… All children want to be reassured that they’re safe, loved - and valued.”

Sansa sighed, flinching internally - at the just accusation against her own mother’s mistreatment of Larra and Jon. “And how do I reassure them?”

“Keep them busy,” Larra said, her smile gentle. “During the day, they’re all focused on their tasks, fortifying the castle…it’s at night when they’re all cooped up that’s going to prove the problem, especially when the snowbanks rise so high we won’t be able to get out of doors for days on end…”

“You sound as if you’re used to it.”

“Gardening taught me the first lessons in patience when I was a girl; enduring beneath the tree with the Three-Eyed Raven made me a master of it,” Larra said heavily. “I watched countless sunrises and snowstorms from the cave entrance, waiting, learning how _not_ to lash out in frustration, boredom, inertia and despair as the world passed me by…”

“How did you endure it?”

“I trained…and I sang.”

“You’ve been so quiet since your return,” Sansa said; Larra used to be the most vocal, the most vibrant of them all. “I’ve hardly heard you speak, let alone sing.”

“I know.”

“If I asked it of you, could you arrange something…an entertainment?” Sansa asked curiously. It wasn’t that Larra was keeping to herself, because she wasn’t; but it was evident she was more comfortable with the wildlings than the lords and ladies of the North. She wasn’t settled, yet. “You’re quite right; we can’t just allow our bannermen to fester in their malcontent when the day’s work is done.”

“We need to give them _hope_ ,” Larra advised her gentle. “Something to look forward to, even if it is only a dance at the end of the day.”

Sansa sighed, setting the heavy obsidian-encrusted tunic down on the age-worn stone floor, but before she turned back to the water, the firelight caught on something tucked among Larra’s discarded furs.

“What’s this?” Sansa blurted, her voice bright with curiosity, almost stunned. A small locket. Her tone teasing, she asked, “Another treasure from Lord Bloodraven?”

She glanced at Larra as she picked up the locket, and saw the way Larra could not conceal a sharp flinch, or the way her eyes locked onto the jewel in Sansa’s hand. To describe the look on Larra’s face, Sansa would say she was filled with _dread_.

It was very clear to Sansa that Larra had not intended for her to find the jewel.

One of those secrets even Meera Reed did not know about.

Cheeks pale and drawn, Larra finally raised her gaze to Sansa, brittle and grief-stricken, wide-eyed and _panicky_ for the first time since her return.

Something about the jewel upset Larra.

That made Sansa even more curious, and it seemed to burn in her palm, larger than a gold dragon but heavier and much more exquisitely detailed. The candlelight made love to the intricate gold-work and the exquisite hues of enamel that made the lavender-grey hellebore rose on one side of the locket seem as if it had been encased in glass, rather than formed from platinum and enamel.

Larra’s voice was devoid of emotion as she said, “Uncle Benjen had it.”

Sansa started, staring at her sister, then glanced down at the locket in her hand. The sinuous chain was made of fine strands of platinum-silver and delicate pale-gold interwoven in an intricate love-knot. The locket itself was made of that same delicate pale-gold and shining platinum.

The hellebore rose - the Northern winter rose - rested in the centre of the round locket; around it circled a dainty silver-platinum dragon with its gold-chased wings tucked close, tiny rubies inlaid as its eyes, its jaws clamped around the heels of a silver direwolf, its eyes specks of obsidian, its jaws fastened onto the end of the dragon’s tail.

An ouroboros, without ending or beginning, sinuous and sensual.

The dragon and the direwolf were both raised from the surface of the locket, tactile and exquisitely detailed.

“It’s more exquisite than any jewel I ever saw at court,” Sansa breathed. More beautiful than any jewel Cersei had ever worn. Sansa stared at Larra, who looked ill, watching her with it. “Why would Uncle Benjen have it?”

A Ranger of the Night’s Watch, in possession of a priceless jewel?

Larra raised her eyes to Sansa, and something changed in her face. She calmed down, her eyes turning thoughtful, shrewd - resigned. She sighed softly, her breath cooling the water droplets lingering on Sansa’s skin.

“So it couldn’t fall into the wrong hands,” she said sadly. “So he always had Lyanna close to his heart.”

Sansa frowned, and was about to ask, when Larra reached forward and opened the locket.

Two exquisite miniatures were revealed, painted in the vibrant, hyper-realistic Myrish style onto ivory, glazed to protect the portraits forever. Sansa glanced down at the twin paintings, her jaw dropping, then at Larra, who was waiting for her reaction.

On the left was Rhaegar. It had to be him. His violet eyes, his long, wavy platinum-silver hair neatly pulled from his face highlighting his strong, masculine features, dressed in simple black leather armour.

The other portrait was of Larra. No - not Larra, Sansa realised. Not Larra, and not Arya, who so closely resembled Larra.

It was _Lyanna_.

The direwolf of silver-platinum, the hellebore rose… _Lyanna’s_ winter roses…

Lyanna was beautiful, and so like Larra they appeared almost twins. _Almost_. Except for the eyes. Larra’s eyes…were the exact shape and hue of Rhaegar’s, Sansa realised, gaping at the portraits. Even in the candlelight, Sansa could tell that - _because_ the candlelight illuminated Larra’s amethyst eyes - and though they did not look particularly alike, Rhaegar’s solemn expression reminded Sansa vividly of Jon. Lyanna’s smile poured from her eyes, beautiful and joyful - the same way Jon’s dark grey eyes betrayed his amusement, even if his face seemed carved from stone.

Around Lyanna’s dainty portrait were words, etched into the pale-gold frame. Sansa couldn’t understand them; they were High Valyrian, she recognised.

“What does it mean?” she asked, glancing up at Larra, whose expression was sorrowful as she gazed at the locket.

“It’s from an ancient High Valyrian ode…a poem from a dragon-rider to his lover…” she said softly. “‘ _The curves of your lips shall rewrite history_ ’… In the epic saga, their love forged empires that lasted millennia.”

Sansa stared at Larra.

Uncle Benjen had been in possession of this locket, a locket containing portraits that showed just how vividly Larra resembled Lyanna…and how Jon bore similar features to Rhaegar.

“Your mother…” Sansa breathed, comprehension dawning, the mystery, the secret Father had kept all their lives. The twins’ mother. “The only woman in the world who could make Eddard Stark forfeit his honour.”

“Lyanna,” Larra acknowledged unhappily. She sighed, taking the locket from Sansa, delicately shutting the clasp, and enfolding it in her furs once again. She turned back to Sansa, saying softly, “We’ve never been bastards.”

Sansa stared at Larra. “You…and Jon…”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Larra said. “Except that Father was a greater man than even we knew him to be. He never once broke his promise to her… To protect us.” She let out a short sigh, a touch of anger between her eyebrows as they drew together in a frown that darkened her eyes. “Lyanna knew Robert would kill us for being Rhaegar’s children, no matter that we were hers, too…”

“But Rhaegar kidnapped and - “

“He didn’t,” Larra interrupted, her voice sad, resigned. Miserable. “They ran away together. Rhaegar wanted Rickard Stark’s support to enforce a regency over his father’s rule; ending his marriage to Elia Martell, retiring her to Dorne for her health, marrying Lyanna to ensure an alliance - and because they were in love with each another… It was foolish to do it in secret - probably Rhaegar’s only dishonourable act, _not_ sitting down with our grandfather to ask for his alliance and his blessing, man to man, and a mortal error… Like Robb’s marriage… It doesn’t matter anyway. Not now.”

Sansa frowned, still grappling with the truth - and the look of pure misery on Larra’s face. All their lives, the twins had yearned to know their mother’s name. Father had kept it from them, the only two people in the world who deserved to know his secret. _Their_ secret. “If it doesn’t matter, why are you telling me?”

“Because I can’t talk to Bran about it, when he remembers so much else. It’s not important to him. And when Jon returns…especially with Samwell at the Citadel - he’ll need someone to talk to,” Larra said quietly. She didn’t look up at Sansa as she said thickly, “She’s been dead the whole time. It’s almost worse than her being alive and exiled from our lives… And because he is King in the North now. It may be become important politically.”

Sansa stared at her sister, slowly analysing the implications. Larra and Jon had never been bastards. They were the legitimate children of Rhaegar and Lyanna…

“Aunt Lyanna was your mother…and Rhaegar was your father,” she murmured. Saying it out loud, it was almost absurd - and yet…and yet it _wasn’t_. Because it made so much more sense than Ned Stark fathering bastards.

The one woman in the world Ned would sacrifice his honour for - his own sister.

“Killed at the Trident before we were born, with her name on his dying breath,” Larra said dully. “And she died begging Father to promise her…that her children would be protected.”

“Father kept it secret ever since Dorne. He never even told Mother. Part of her always hated him on account of you and Jon…and you were Targaryens all along,” Sansa breathed, thunderstruck. An even greater implication struck her, then, and Sansa gaped. “You were - are - _royalty_ , the only legitimate heirs to the Iron Throne.”

Larra scoffed, her tiny smile drenched in irony. “The Kingdoms rose in open rebellion against the Targaryen dynasty before we were even born, we’re not heirs to anything but a legacy of tragedy and horror.”

“Fire and blood,” Sansa said.

“Fire and Blood,” Larra agreed, her nose crinkling delicately to show her distaste.

“Jon is a Targaryen,” Sansa marvelled. And then her heart sank. “You are…niece and nephew to this Dragon Queen.”

Larra saw the change in her expression, and her eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

“When Jon left, I told him… I told him to do what he must, to get what he needed and to return home. I told him to ride the dragon if that’s what it took,” Sansa fretted, guilt suddenly consuming her, shame. The realisation that, “He’ll never forgive me.”

“How could you have known?” Larra tutted, shaking her head. Her drying curls the colour of treacle bounced delicately around her shoulders, tickling her bare breasts, whispering against her scarred arms. “And you’re assuming Jon cannot control his lust.”

“They say she’s very beautiful,” Sansa moaned desperately.

Again, Larra scoffed; she even rolled her eyes. “Women in positions of power usually are - even when they’re not.”

“‘A pretty face does not mean a pretty heart’,” Sansa recited, and Larra’s lips twitched, her eyes glowing with wry amusement.

“You _do_ remember the things I told you,” she said fondly.

“Yes, your voice was always in my head - some days I just begged you to _shut up_ ,” Sansa said enthusiastically, smiling, and Larra chuckled softly. Sansa sighed, gazing warmly at Larra. “I know Jon still hears your voice, too. It’s why he didn’t strip the lands and castles from the Umbers and Karstarks.”

“You disapprove of his compassion,” Larra said, reading her face so easily.

“I worry it made him seem weak,” Sansa clarified.

“It doesn’t. It was the wisest choice he could ever make, not just the kindness. For generations to come, Umbers and Karstarks will be raised on stories of the King’s mercy. Jon’s not shown weakness; he’s assured his future strength. They will never forget…” Larra sighed, smiling fondly, proud of Jon’s wisdom and forethought. Wherever she had been, Sansa was sure Larra had always been proud of Jon. It made Sansa’s heart flutter to think that, perhaps, Larra thought as well of Sansa’s own survival. “And, practically speaking, it was wiser not to strip those lands and castles; we need every man _here_ , focused on the war, not scrabbling to secure their new lands, squabbling amongst themselves over who deserves the lands more, the politics of it all.”

“When you put it that way…”

“Jon has powerful instincts,” Larra said quietly. There was subtle warning in her expression when she said, “Don’t underestimate him.”

“I don’t. But I do worry for him,” Sansa said honestly. “Stark men do not fare well when they go south.”

“True,” Larra said, her smile humourless. “But Jon’s not a Stark.”

“He is to me,” Sansa said earnestly. “So are you.” She cleared her throat as Larra smiled, gentle and fond, and raised her hands to her face. “My fingers have quite pruned. Are you ready to get out of the water?”

“Yes,” Larra smiled, and it finally reached her eyes. They waded to the stone steps and traipsed out of the water, dripping, enrobed by the sultry moisture in the air as Larra led the way to the hearth, and she handed Sansa a terrycloth towel before drying herself off with another. She sat naked on one of the stuffed floor-cushions laid out before the fire, and tucked her long hair over one shoulder, the better to dry it by the heat of the flames, squeezing the water from her long tresses, tenderly threading a comb through them before the curls could dry.

It was with a sense of déjà vu that Sansa sat beside her sister, and watched Larra’s shining treacle hair shrink in length from past her bottom to her lower-back as her hair dried and coiled into mutinous curls, thick and bouncy, lustrous and wild, flirtatious and unruly as Larra herself had once been. Sansa remembered her old envy of Larra’s beautiful curls, and smiled to herself. Larra had found a small basket on the hearth, with small seed-cakes folded inside a linen napkin, and a small skillet pot resting in the coals. Carefully lifting the lid, Larra’s eyes glowed as a smile turned up the corners of her lips.

“Cauliflower and chestnut soup,” she said warmly, and using a ladle tucked into the basket, doled out portions for them both into large, glazed earthenware cups. It was such a deceptively simple meal, yet it was thick, creamy and decadent, and Sansa knew the days of an indulgent soup served with dainty seed-cakes would be treasured memories when the winter had lingered too long.

For a little while, they sat before the fire, drinking their soup, enjoying the small, dainty seed-cakes, listening to the fire crackle and snap, lulled by the heat and the dancing flames, quiet, after such intimate talk… Sansa had a lot to think about. The implications… To distract herself, Sansa returned to the basket, carrying it over to the fire; she pulled out the dainty little bottles of fragrant oils and balms Shae had once used to keep Sansa’s hair shining, healthy and sweet-scented. Warming some balm in her fingers and palms, she finger-combed it through Larra’s already-tangled curls, helping them set, giving them a healthful shine; then she finished with a tiny bit of fragranced oil. It was strange, to be home, with Larra. They were adults now, grown women, and it was strange to think they should be here - two _girls_ \- when their brothers had been trained for war and violence since childhood. Their brothers were gone, but here they were… They had both survived the extraordinary.

If they survived this looming war, Sansa wondered whether they would not be remembered as two of the greatest She-Wolves in the history of the North.

Larra laughed grimly at the idea, her eyes sad and regretful. She sighed, shaking her head at something. She sighed, “ _There and back again_ … I had always imagined that my adventures would be worth writing down.”

“They are,” Sansa said coaxingly, her smile gentle. “ _They are_.”

“No; they’d make for dull reading,” Larra disagreed. “Years trudging through the snow, idling beneath an ancient tree.”

“You lived among the Children of the Forest,” Sansa said, quietly awed. “You fought wights and killed White Walkers and learned the songs of the Children of the Forest, you immersed yourself in the cultures of the Free Folk and had tutelage from the last of the great Greenseers… Perhaps the day-to-day was interminable, but the knowledge and experiences you gained are worth documenting.”

“Much like yours,” Larra said.

“Nobody gives two shits what happens to a highborn hostage in her gilded cage,” Sansa said, and Larra’s lips twitched, her eyebrows rising at Sansa’s vulgar language, “but I do acknowledge they’d be rather curious how that hostage escaped from the Red Keep right under the Lannisters’ noses without so much as a whisper, only to reappear and liberate the North with an army of wildlings led by her brother, the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and her allies the Knights of the Vale.”

“ _Her_ allies?” Larra said shrewdly, giving Sansa a discerning look. “I’d wager Lord Baelish counts them as _his_.”

“Oh, he manipulated the Knights to do his bidding,” Sansa acknowledged, “but they are as distrustful of him as any men can be. He got them here; but they stayed for us. For me and Jon. Jon is…the kind of man the Knights of the Vale _wish_ led them.”

“And _you_ the Lady of the Vale they wish they’d had after Jon Arryn died, I’d wager,” Larra said, eyeing Sansa carefully, and Sansa nodded sombrely. “Lord Royce stays close to you.”

“As I said, he distrusts Lord Baelish.”

“It’s more than that; he dislikes the man.”

“Can you like someone if you don’t trust them?” Sansa asked, even as her mind went to Lord Tyrion. No, she had not trusted her first husband - _should have_ , she knew, reflecting on her experiences with him - but she had grown to like him. His humour, his wit, his…compassion. She had not let him be kind to her when she had learned the horrifying truth of her family being butchered.

“What makes you smile?” Larra asked.

“You’ve…guessed much of what has happened to me… But there are some things I should have shared with you that I haven’t, yet… I haven’t told you about my protectors.”

“I truly did not think you had any.”

“I did… There were two. And they were exceptional.”

“How so?”

“One was Sandor Clegane,” Sansa said, something fluttering in her stomach at the memory of the coarse voice rumbling, “ _Little bird_ ,” in her ear, the way he towered over her, intimidating - and how tenderly he had pressed a scrap of fabric to her bleeding lip after Ser Meryn had struck her. He was the only one to protect her modesty, draping his grubby white Kingsguard cloak over her when she had been stripped and beaten at court. She remembered how ruthlessly he had cut down the men intending to rape her, and had carried her through King’s Landing, bloodying anyone who attempted to harm her. How he had sought her out during the Battle of the Blackwater, drunk and upset by the fire that had consumed the bay, asking her, “ _Do you want to go home? I could take you with me. I’ll keep you safe_ …”

How _bitterly_ she regretted not going with Sandor that night.

She could not remember when it was he had become Sandor in her mind, not the Hound.

“I was…utterly alone in King’s Landing. I couldn’t trust anyone, even - especially the people I thought were being kind to me,” Sansa said, sighing heavily. “The first was Sandor Clegane… Whenever he could, _however_ he could…he protected me. When Stannis attacked King’s Landing, and he abandoned Joffrey, he came to me…he offered to bring me home…”

Perhaps it was because Larra had bared her scars without shame; or because she had shared the terrible truth about her parentage. But Sansa started to tell her about King’s Landing, her gilded imprisonment at court. Joffrey’s torment, Cersei’s passive-aggressive bullying and snide comments, being used as a pawn, dragged across the cyvasse board by her skirts, powerless, friendless, hopeless, beaten, belittled, preyed upon…

“The unlikeliest champion,” Larra smiled knowingly. Sansa had dreamed of perfect shining knights - who had Jaime Lannister’s looks and Father’s honour. Sandor Clegane certainly was not a perfect knight - but he was a good man, beneath it all. “You said he was the first. I’m surprised to hear there were others.”

“One other, who truly did his best by me… My husband,” Sansa said gently. It didn’t taste sour on her tongue to call Tyrion that. Looking back, piercing the murky veil of her grief and her veiled terror and anguish, she recognised the truth: that Tyrion Lannister was one man in a million.

“What husband?” Larra blinked.

“They wed me to the Imp.”

“ _What_?” Genuine amusement lit up Larra’s face; Sansa remembered the King’s visit to Winterfell, how she had often, in the days before Bran’s fall, seen Larra and Tyrion deep in discussion - and their cups - playing games and exchanging books. “You were married to Tyrion?”

“On our wedding night, he pretended to be blistered from drink after he threatened Joffrey. He was insisting on a bedding ceremony; Tyrion threatened to castrate him,” Sansa said fondly. Larra stared, as she continued, “And when we retired to our chamber, Tyrion stopped me from undressing, and told me he would never share my bed unless I invited him... I think he was desperate to tell me about the Red Wedding, but - Joffrey found me first… After, Tyrion…worried about me, he…did his utmost to try to look after me… I didn’t trust him - how could I? - but I respected his kindness…though I never showed it. Sometimes he would talk about you, and Jon. It was clear he was fond of you. And that you liked _him_. He respected my mother, and felt shame for his family’s part in Robb’s murder… I didn’t hear about his arrest until later, and there was nothing I could do…”

“At least you know he’s safe,” Larra said, reading Sansa’s troubled expression.

“He’s serving a Targaryen,” Sansa said grimly, then realised who she was speaking to, after the revelation… Larra’s lips twitched with dark irony. “I suppose he’s survived far worse. Tyrion Lannister made an art-form of outwitting violent tyrants.”

“All while astonishingly drunk, no doubt.”

“You knew his worth from the beginning, didn’t you?”

“Do you know…he took the time, on his journey back from the Wall, to design a saddle for Bran,” Larra said warmly. “So he could ride.”

“He did?” Sansa asked; Tyrion had never mentioned that.

“The morning they finished his saddle, and we took Bran to the woods to ride…it was the first time I saw Bran light up with joy since his fall…” For a moment, Larra’s face lit up with warmth, joy. “I have that memory; and Tyrion Lannister gave it to me.” Her cunning eyes rested on Sansa’s face. “There’s much more I am grateful to the Imp for.”

“He hates that name.”

“I know. ‘ _Never forget what you are_ ,’ he once told Jon. ‘ _Wear it like armour, and it can never be used against you_ ’,” Larra sighed, her smile fond. “Tyrion Lannister is worth more than all the gold in Casterly Rock.”

“He’d be overwhelmed to hear anyone think so well of him,” Sansa said.

“Oh, I know,” Larra smiled sadly. “He’s like your imperfect knight. And your bastard half-sister. Few care to look beyond the surface to see the treasure beneath.”

“Well, I’ve learned to,” Sansa said softly, and Larra’s gentle smile was coaxing and proud.

When they were warm, and dry, and fed, and Larra’s curls shone like a frothy dark halo around her, Sansa knew it was time to go. Time to return to Winterfell, to face the castle and their responsibilities head on…at least, in a few hours, after they had indulged in a good night’s sleep. She turned to the chairs, on which clothing had been laid out, ready.

“I made Jon a cloak, like the one Father used to wear - as near as I could remember - with a direwolf embellished on the leather straps,” Sansa said, almost hesitantly, as she turned to the chair on which was draped a heavy silk gown of deep aubergine purple. The purple gown was deceptively plain, except for the cuffs, which were split and only slightly flared to accommodate for the black fur trim, and the hem of the skirt, which had been richly embroidered with hellebores in hues of amethyst, aubergine, tarnished gold and onyx in silk threads and the tiniest beads Lord Manderly could send from White Harbour. The hellebores rose almost to the knees, and among them danced direwolves in glittering black, tarnished gold, delicate amber, silver-white, soft brown and fawn - Last Shadow, Summer and Shaggydog, Grey Wind, Nymeria, Lady and Ghost.

Sansa had always worn her heart on her sleeve, sometimes dangerously so: She had sewn Larra’s heart onto her sleeves. Bran and Rickon. Shaggydog and Summer, chasing after Last Shadow, who snarled protectively at Larra’s wrists.

The hellebores were Larra’s favourite; the direwolves were each member of their family.

It was a gown fit for the sister of a King.

It was fit for _her_ sister. Sansa had designed and sewn it herself, aided by the ladies of the North who had kept the secret, thrilled to be making something for their King’s sister who had been thought lost.

“You two have always been Starks; it was my mother’s wounded pride that kept Father from giving you his name. _Our_ name,” Sansa said, staring at Larra. She gave Larra an ironic little smile. “Perhaps it is a little redundant now, given what you’ve learned.”

Larra had risen to her feet, her eyes flitting from the clothes Sansa had folded neatly on the other chair when she had climbed out of them earlier, to the gown draped beautifully over the other chair, the beading and embroidery shimmering in the firelight, the aubergine silk gleaming. She glanced up from the dress to Sansa.

“You made this for me?” she breathed.

“You should always have worn the direwolf; you do it proud,” Sansa said stoutly. Larra’s lips parted, her eyes wide as they drank in the details of the gown, from the three little direwolves running one after the other from elbow to wrist, to the intricate hellebores and direwolves at the hem.

“Thank you, Sansa,” Larra breathed wondrously. She had the same stunned look on her face that Jon had, when Sansa had given him the cloak, the first garment Jon had ever worn with Father’s sigil on it. _His_ sigil. Their family’s sigil.

“You’re welcome,” Sansa smiled sweetly, pleased by the nonplussed look on Larra’s face, even by the way her eyes glittered as she bent to examine the intricate direwolves embroidered on the sleeves, on the skirt. Sansa pretended not to notice Larra swiping the heel of her palm over her eyes as she stood up, her curls concealing her face. “And don’t worry; I don’t intend to strip you of your protection. The head armourer has taken your measure; he’s already working on something for you. With your approval, I shall have the obsidian rings sent to him to complete your armour.”

“Please, no plate metal,” Larra grimaced, still holding onto the sleeve of the dress, rubbing her thumbs over the embroidered Shaggydog.

“Don’t worry; he’s seen you sparring in the training yard,” Sansa smiled brightly. “He told me he would never restrict your movements by putting you in plate armour.”

They helped each other dress, Larra’s fingers as nimble and gentle as Sansa remembered, and Larra smoothed the front of her new gown as Sansa laced it tight.

It was the finest gown Larra had ever worn.

Sansa stared, when Larra turned to her, giving her a full view of the gown, the silk gleaming in the firelight, the embroidery shimmering and sparkling with every tiny movement. She looked every inch a lady.

 _No_ , Sansa thought: “You look like royalty.”


	20. Dark Wings, Dark Words

**Valyrian Steel**

_20_

_Dark Wings, Dark Words_

* * *

Winter had come. The sea surrounding Dragonstone was black, churning with rage, violent waves crashing over fifty feet high in places, abusing the cliff-sides and drowning the little quay. The smallfolk nestled in the shelter of the great, eerie castle were relieved, huddled behind their solid walls: any whoever could not be sheltered beyond its walls found room inside the halls of Dragonstone. It suddenly became very busy inside the dank, malignant castle: The rigid silence in which Daenerys Targaryen seemed to prefer to hold her court was disturbed, and no-one apologised for it.

The King’s men continued to labour in the obsidian mines. The first threat of men drowning, though, and the King forbade any men from digging. They would mine what they could in the finer weather, and wait out the storms in between, but their days of mining were becoming few and far between, and Jon knew that soon their opportunities to mine obsidian would run out. They would have to make do with what they had already mined from the earth - luckily, it was far more than he could ever have hoped. Enough to arm the entire North, at least with a spearhead or short knife each. That was all they needed. The real trouble was no longer just in mining the obsidian: it was in shipping it to White Harbour.

Only the Ironborn dared the sea during such storms as harassed the island, for which Jon was eternally grateful. They risked every storm to send the priceless, life-giving obsidian North. Sky and sea all but black, limned by lightning, thunder echoing through the carved halls that shimmered in places with the now-priceless obsidian, shadows flickering eerily as torches guttered and shadows seemed to become tangible, and every rumble of thunder made people anxious about Dragonmont. The volcano was still active, and whether it was the Queen’s children or the volcano itself, vapour from the volcano settled like a wreath around Dragonstone castle, shrouding everything but the tallest towers and the eeriest gargoyles, and Drogon, who often perched atop the Stone Drum inside which slept his mother, his mistress.

The Queen was unaccustomed to storms. It was curious for her council to observe that the young woman known all her life as Stormborn…was _spooked_ by thunder and lightning.

She disliked it: She claimed she dreaded for her dragons, who could not fly in such weather.

Her Hand laughed: Dragons did not fear foul weather. The dragons were not seen for days on end, and perhaps they had disappeared into the heat of the active Dragonmont…or perhaps they had flown somewhere to hunt. Either way, Daenerys Stormborn fretted through the storms, and her council allowed her to think they believed her anxiousness was for her children…not for the harrowing sense that the castle would come down on top of them with every clap of thunder.

Tensions within the castle - within the Chamber of the Painted Table at the top of the Stone Drum in which the Queen’s council was arguing - were rising. The Queen’s council argued through the storm, their voices often drowned out by the thunder; and the longer they argued and the louder the thunder, the more volatile and irrational Queen Daenerys became.

The Queen’s council was in the midst of arguing over the wisest course of action when the first raven arrived, its feathers sticking at odd angles, half-drowned from the storm - but determined. It was fed raw steak and tended by a new maester who had arrived from Citadel just in time - before the first storm struck Dragonstone with a viciousness that was awing to behold. The Queen’s council only paused its arguments to dine in the evenings, and the exotic delicacies Queen Daenerys’ kitchens prepared did nothing to soothe the fractured nerves and splintering egos among her advisers as they sat quiet and agitated, and shrewd dark-grey eyes like the sea during the worst storms observed the tension between the Queen’s court and kept to himself, murmuring quiet thanks to the Queen’s cupbearers. They were the two pretty girls who had carried Queen Daenerys’ standard when Jon had arrived at Dragonstone, and until the first storm Jon had only known them by sight.

He had been talking with Theon when the first clash of thunder was heard, and lightning speared across the black clouds in violent forks that seemed almost to split the sky in two. The two girls had screamed and bolted, grabbing onto Jon and Theon fearfully, wide-eyed and shivering with terror. The one with rich amber-coloured skin, wide eyes heavily lashed and dark reddish hair was Zafiyah; the other, with pale skin, high cheekbones, a rosebud mouth and high, slanting dark eyes and silky black hair was Qezza. Both girls were natives of Meereen and by their wide eyes and the gooseflesh on their arms - they still wore their native _tokar_ with no sturdier outer garments - regretted accompanying their Queen so far from their home, even as the only two of Her Radiance’s personally-chosen handmaids. They spoke a blend of bastard Valyrian and Ghiscari that Jon had never heard, and even Tyrion struggled with: Jon knew enough High Valyrian from Larra’s obsession with epic poetry that he could greet and thank the girls for the wine they poured, and praise Qezza’s singing as beautiful, though it made his stomach hurt, and he saw Theon’s grim, faraway expression, as they both thought of Larra singing through summer snowstorms to soothe their frightened little siblings.

Qezza sang sweetly, her voice soothing and calm, and Jon wondered if she had felt the tension in the air and chosen to sing to lighten the mood, or whether she had been asked; either way, the Queen’s court was just distracted enough by her sweet trilling that it was Jon who noticed the maester first.

He was a small man, always seeming to be flinching apologetically. He had been summoned to Dragonstone by Tyrion: the Citadel was obligated to send a maester to every great house in Westeros. Perhaps it was the fate of the previous maester at Dragonstone, or perhaps it was the Queen’s reputation that had Maester Mallor cringing every time he entered a room. Indeed, as he edged hesitantly into the candlelit dining chamber, his face was already pinched with a fretfulness that was agonising to witness. Jon had spoken with him several times, and knew it was more the Queen than the ghost of the previous maester that unnerved the maester; he was perfectly eloquent with Jon when they had discussed him helping Jon sift through the thousands of ancient Valyrian texts - a vast and priceless treasure-trove of rare and sometimes one-of-a-kind texts, books, scrolls, lithographs, papyri and exquisite codices, last relics of a lost culture.

Jon frowned softly at him; the Maester glanced fearfully across the chamber, where the Queen was sipping hibiscus wine, nibbling a variety of _dainties_ made by Lady Olenna’s personal pastry chef and glaring coldly at Qezza in her dainty, shimmering rose-pink tokar and pearls.

Maester Mallor locked eyes with Jon, gulped, and glanced around the hall before shuffling toward Jon as if he wished for nothing more than to be allowed to remain blended in with the wall behind him, unnoticed. Jon noticed his robe was a little damp, his chain glistening with rainwater, and the chill of rain seemed to emanate from him as he approached. As Jon sat up straighter, setting down his finely-etched glass of mulled wine - still rather full; these southern heretics insisted on adding lemon - his gaze flitted across the chamber, to Ellaria Sand. Somehow, even during yet another violent thunderstorm, she oozed decadent warmth and sensuality, reclined idly on a chaise with her youngest daughters cuddled to her, tenderly stroking her fingers through their inky dark hair. Little Dorea and Loreza, who both sighed with admiration at Long Claw. Their sharp dark eyes twinkled in the candlelight, and even as Loreza sucked her thumb, tucked against her mother’s chest, she raised a dimpled hand to wave at Jon, whose stomach cramped with longing for the broad hearth in the nursery of Winterfell, all his brothers and sisters gathered around on a blustery dark afternoon, frightened and enthralled by Old Nan’s stories as her knitting-needles clicked and clacked and the logs popped and Arya burrowed into his chest the same way Loreza did her mother’s, and Larra rested her head on his shoulder, and he played with the ends of her long braid as he listened to the stories…

He shared a glance with Ellaria, who was curious, and beside her, the unbeautiful but powerful Obara Sand, eldest sister to Dorea and Loreza and as lethal, they said, as her father the Red Viper. She had arrived mere days ago with an elegant lady, Nymeria, another sister, with olive skin and impossibly sheer gowns that revealed spun-gold and jewels and the hilts of concealed daggers; a third Sand Snake, Tyene, blonde and blue-eyed, lounged with some Dothraki bloodriders, teasing and flirting as they played a game involving short knives. They ignored the maester, but Ellaria and Nymeria Sand both glanced from him to Jon as the anxious maester made his way to the King in the North, flinching every time his pale eyes darted fearfully to the end of the chamber and the haughty Queen simmering by the hearth carved to look like a dragon’s open maw.

Only a Targaryen would feel so comfortable sat quite so close to a dragon’s open mouth: Jon sat at the other end of the hall, away from the suffocating heat of the fire, too unused to warmth to enjoy it. The Sands, Jon knew, sat so far from the warmth of the flames only because they were so displeased with the Queen’s bloodthirsty plans for dominating Westeros. Ellaria was more cautious, far wiser. The younger Sands were militant, but guarded: They were here on behalf of their uncle, the Prince of Dorne, his representatives like Ellaria herself - Ellaria’s protection, and more eyes through which Prince Doran Martell could see. Each of the Sand Snakes focused on different details, Jon knew. Obara assessed the Dothraki horde and the Unsullied, including the uncut, training boys: Nymeria acted somewhat as an unofficial lady-in-waiting to Daenerys and had done since she sauntered into the throne room. Tyene…she walked on air, all false innocence, soft palms and sweetness - but as vicious, Jon guessed, as her eldest sister.

The Maester’s robes whispered against the worn stone floor, his heavy chain clinking and rattling, and he winced as he gave a courteous bow and proffered a raven-scroll, Jon’s heart heavy with dread. Was this the scroll he had been anticipating in his nightmares, Sansa’s elegant hand hasty as she scrawled her last message to Jon as the hordes overran Winterfell… The scroll glistened in the light from the oil-lamp on the little table beside Jon; the parchment had been treated with wax to protect it from the rain.

The wax sealing the scroll was reddish-gold, the seal itself…a lion rearing on its hind legs.

Jon frowned and glanced up at Maester Mallor, who cringed and seemed to shrink with fear. He did not anticipate any correspondence from Queen Cersei: He left it to Sansa’s wisdom and experience to deal with that particular threat, should it become more than just Sansa’s anticipation of an attack from Cersei. He sighed, and unfurled the miniature scroll, and realised immediately the scroll had not been for him. Just that the maester felt most comfortable approaching _him_ …

So Jon could relay the bad news…

 _The roses have been uprooted from the garden, pretty flowers, gnarled roots and strong stems alike_.

A tongue-in-cheek salutation, and following it, a few simple, brutal sentences. Jon’s heart sank, and he fought the instinct to glance up at Lady Olenna, and her eldest granddaughter Lady Alynore, who sat with an embroidery hoop, delicate, gentle and elegant in everything she did, with soft eyes that saw much more than people thought. Her young cousins, five of them, were with their septa in their chamber, according to Lady Alynore, frightened by the storm: They were convinced the castle was breaking apart, that they would be drowned - by the sea, or by molten magma from the exploding volcano.

“What is that?” The voice cut through the chamber like a whip-crack, and Qezza fell silent. The sudden absence of her lilting, gentle voice made the booms of thunder and the sharp explosions of lightning seem far louder; temporarily, Qezza had held the storm at bay.

The Queen had risen from her seat, the hibiscus-wine in her hand turned to liquid fire, illuminated by the flames behind her; her hair shimmered softly silver-gold around the edges, like the lightning briefly illuminated the ferocious clouds, and turned away from the firelight as she was, the Queen’s expression was shadowed from his view. He didn’t need to see her face to be able to read her body-language, or to hear the sharp snap of a trap in her voice. Demanding, unyielding… Jon sighed softly, and using the oil-lamp set the little scroll on fire.

He remembered two things: The care and grim concern with which Grenn and Maester Aemon had delivered the news to Jon about the Red Wedding while he recuperated from his time with Tormund’s raiding party, shot full of arrows as he left behind the woman he loved…

And the way in which Sansa had been informed that their brother had been murdered and decapitated, his dead direwolf’s head stitched to Robb’s body, and that her mother’s throat had been slit to the bone, her body thrown into the river. Joffrey had crowed, repeating Lord Walder Frey’s raven-scroll: ‘ _Roslin copped a fine fat trout. Her brothers gave her a pair of wolf pelts for her wedding_.’ Joffrey had spared Sansa no detail, luxuriating in Sansa’s face slowly leaching of colour - disappointed and frustrated that Sansa had kept her composure long enough to withstand his torments, and finally break down and sob for days on end in the privacy of her new bridal chamber…

Jon stood, his movements heavy with anticipation, and made his way over to the Tyrells, Lady Olenna in a sturdy, engraved chair and Lady Alynore, fresh and delicate as any bloom in a rose-garden, reclined elegantly on richly embroidered woven floor-pillows nestled on furs and a rich Qartheen carpet at Lady Olenna’s feet. Lady Alynore noticed his approach as her grandmother’s rich clothing rustled, and lowered her embroidery-hoop: Lady Olenna’s eyes were shrewd and wary as he approached.

He remembered how Sansa had been told: He knew how he had felt, how much he had appreciated the gentle but straightforward way in which Maester Aemon had told him about the worst atrocity of their generation - of many generations, and one no-one was ever going to forget.

He took a knee before Lady Olenna, to put them on a level. Lady Alynore sat up straighter, and a whisper of her perfume of jasmine and delicate flowering mint tickled his nose, making him think of an afternoon he had spent in the solar with Sansa, who had enjoyed going through the gifts Lord Manderly had sent them from White Harbour, including fresh citrus from the Reach, Qartheen silk-velvet and perfumes from King’s Landing. For days the solar had stunk like a bouquet of flowers, so heady and pungent Jon’s eyes had watered every time he walked into the room. Sansa had teased him for being accustomed to the musk of ice, leather, sweat and fur. For a moment the firelight turned Lady Alynore’s soft golden-brown hair into fiery copper. Jon blinked, and his sister disappeared, replaced again by Lady Alynore.

Jon knew why _he_ had been handed the raven-scroll; he was perhaps the only one in the chamber who could understand what Olenna and Alynore, and her little cousins, were about to endure. He alone could deliver the news with absolute empathy, born of his own experience.

“Lady Olenna… Lady Alynore… It is my regret to inform you that Highgarden has been sacked. Your larders have been plundered, your treasuries robbed…” Jon said, and paused for a heartbeat, before glancing from maiden to crone, telling them, “The Lannister armies were joined by the forces of House Tarly, and their allies… Every man, woman and child bearing the name Tyrell was put to the sword…”

He let his words sink in. How long would it take for the news to become a reality? How long before the two women could return to Highgarden, their pillaged home? Before the bodies decayed? Longer? Would their loved-ones be identifiable as their family? Had the Lannisters, at least, lit a funeral pyre? Or left noble ladies and children and old men to rot where they were cut down?

And what of the survivors?

An embittered crone; a dazed young woman; and five little girls.

“I am sorrier than I can say,” Jon said grimly, and because he was the son of the unjustly executed Ned Stark, and brother to the murdered Young Wolf, Robb Stark, everyone in that hall knew he was in earnest. He was the only one who had any right to try and console the Tyrells. He gazed at Lady Olenna, who stared blankly at him, as if mildly affronted by his approach, rather than the news he had delivered so sombrely, and at Lady Alynore, whose eyes gleamed, and her hands shook as she lowered her embroidery hoop to her lap, her cheeks hollowed as her skin turned ashen. “If there is anything I can do for you, you have but to ask.”

Jon was aware that he had taken a knee before Lady Olenna and her granddaughter. That he had offered his service to them. It was lost on no-one else, either, especially the Queen, who had spent days and long nights agonising over how to get him to do the same - to her.

Yet, Jon had not promised the Tyrells his kingdom; only his friendship.

The Tyrells were now, Jon knew, in the very same position Sansa had found herself when their father was arrested on false charges… Friendless prisoners of a vicious queen, utterly at her mercy - and her disposal, stripped from their home, the weight of tragedy thrust upon them…

Sansa had had no friends, no true protectors devoted to her.

She had fought like a vicious direwolf to reclaim their home. But she shouldn’t have had to. Her experiences had made her wiser, yes, and brought out earlier in her lifetime the sternness and resolve and cleverness that had always been there, beneath the surface, under the pretty silks and ribbons she had preferred…

The Queen of Thorns stared at Jon. For the briefest of heartbeats, Jon saw true frailty in her crumpled face as grief settled in, carving the last light from her shadowed eyes. A heartbeat, no more, and stoic resolve settled over her lined face. Her tone was crisp as night frost when she asked, “You burned the scroll. What did Cersei write?”

“Nothing clever…” Jon said grimly, and the Queen of Thorns nodded once. She rose from her chair, Lady Alynore’s wide pale-green eyes following her, damp and shocked, but her grandmother strode the length of the hall, her head held high, her black mourning veil and heavy black silk-brocade skirts whispering behind her. Jon watched her go, dignified and _regal_ \- until she reached the carved doors, where she paused, and Jon heard her laboured breathing over the crackle of the flames at the hearth and a brief pause in the deluge and thunder…she reached out a hand, steadying herself against the door, and Jon watched her composure falter, crumpling to the floor…not just with grief, he realised, and strode toward the elderly woman.

“Lady Olenna?” He reached the old lady first; her face was bone-white and beaded with sweat, and he managed to catch her before she hit the polished floor. She fell heavily in his arms, and Jon’s stomach felt leaden as he realised he could not hear her breathing. Over his shoulder, he called, “Maester Mallor!”

Lady Olenna’s age-paled eyes rolled, and Jon’s insides unclenched as she groaned, sweat slipping down her face, and a shaky hand reached to her bosom, her face a picture of agony.

“Fetch a litter,” Jon ordered some of the servants. A soft word from Missandei in bastard Valyrian, and the servants scampered away hurriedly. Lady Olenna groaned, grimacing, as she clutched at her chest. Shadows danced over them, obscuring her face, and Jon glanced up, scowling, to find half the court gathered around them, trying to see what was going on. Jon’s scowl was enough: They stepped back. The maester approached, and Jon asked Lady Olenna quietly, “Lady Olenna…may I loosen your belt, and your wimple?”

The old woman nodded weakly, wheezing. She could barely breathe.

“What is wrong with her?” asked Lady Alynore quietly, sinking to her knees beside her grandmother in a froth of delicate skirts, her face beautiful and concerned. Jon shook his head. If he had to guess, he would say Lady Olenna’s heart had broken.

“Move back…” Maester Mallor muttered impatiently, and for the first time, he took control of the room. His chain was heavy with healing links; his anxiousness melted away, replaced by quiet resolve and purpose.

“I have Grandmother’s smelling salts,” Lady Alynore said, her eyes still wide, and very damp now, her cheeks streaked with tears.

“I’m not sure they will help,” Maester Mallor said, his tone solemn but kind, as Jon unlatched the elaborate metal belt designed like tangled branches laden with thorns, and Alynore loosened her grandmother’s elaborate wimple. Four servants appeared, carrying a litter. “Lady Olenna’s heart appears to be failing.”

Lady Alynore turned to stare at the maester, as Jon and the servants helped settle the ill old lady onto the litter; she was carried out of the chamber, the maester muttering to himself. Jon offered his hand to Lady Alynore, in a pool of her diaphanous skirts on the polished floor. She gazed up at him, pale-green eyes glowing softly, glittering with tears, and her lower lip trembled as she exhaled shakily, reaching for his hand; Jon gently pulled her to her feet, where she stood faintly swaying, her expression bewildered, uncertain. Lady Olenna may have mastered the art of concealing her emotions, but her granddaughter had yet to discover the skill.

“Lady Tyrell?” Jon asked quietly. “Do you not wish to go with your grandmother?”

Lady Alynore seemed to struggle to focus on Jon, her eyes swimming, her lips pale. Eventually, she murmured distractedly, “Someone…must tell my cousins.”

Jon sighed heavily, staring at the young woman. She was _beautiful_. Her grief only served to highlight just how exquisite and delicate she was. But she was so much more than that, too. Jon understood at a glance that Alynore Tyrell was the kind of girl men simultaneously wanted to protect and ravish, whose smiles they wanted to claim, to make her laugh and earn her favour, and take her to bed and keep her there.

And she would become a woman men respected, and wish to gain approval from. She reminded him of Larra and Sansa in the way people often saw the beauty, but rarely the steel beneath.

“Let them have this one last night not choking on their nightmares,” Jon told Lady Alynore quietly. The little cousins had the rest of their lives to grieve, and regret: tonight, they should be allowed to dream peacefully.

“If I would ever have dreamed this is what I’d be left to…I would have died with my sisters in the Sept,” Lady Alynore whispered, her eyes shimmering. Jon stared at her.

“You’re stronger than such thoughts,” he said quietly, all too aware that the others were angling to hear. “It may not feel like it now, but you are. I don’t have to know you well to know that, Lady Tyrell.”

Lady Alynore stared up at him, her pale-green eyes beguiling and tragic. “Do you know how many members of my family had to die for me to become Lady Tyrell?”

Jon sighed grimly. “All of them.”

“Seventy-three,” she whispered hoarsely, tears glimmering like diamonds as they dripped down her pale cheeks.

“I don’t know what it means, to have a large family. I do know how it feels to find out my family has been butchered,” Jon told her softly, and she flinched, but did not break eye-contact. “It never gets easier to bear…but you do get stronger. Strong enough to carry your grief, and keep going. That’s all you can do, now. Keep going.”

Lady Alynore’s exquisite lips trembled, and she asked Jon thickly, “ _How_?”

“You get out of bed every morning…and do what needs to be done, no matter what it costs you to keep going, how much pain you’re in,” Jon told her, and knew Lord Varys, Ellaria and Nymeria Sand and Theon had heard him. “And you’re not alone. You have your cousins, your grandmother…”

“Little girls…and a broken old woman,” Lady Alynore said hollowly.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the hall, casting eerie shadows; and for the briefest moment, Jon could have sworn he saw Larra in the vivid flicker of silver light, standing behind Lady Alynore’s shoulder. Her smile was tragic, but her eyes glowed with warmth as they rested on Jon’s face.

“The wisdom of the past, and a dream of a future you can build,” Jon told Lady Alynore, remembering something Larra had once said of Valyrian poetry and architecture, lessons to learn by to rebuild an even more vibrant future than what had already been lost. “Without even the smallest glimmer of hope for a future, we’re all fucked…” Lady Alynore’s expression did not change because he had sworn in front of her. She wavered on her feet, though, her eyes sliding past him subtly, uncertain as she gazed into the chamber. Jon understood. Etiquette dictated she remain with her queen: Loyalty called her to her grandmother’s sickbed. “It’s alright, you need no-one’s permission to go and grieve in private. I meant what I said…if you, or your cousins need anything, you have but to ask.”

Lady Alynore raised her eyes to his face, and held his gaze for a long moment. Solemnity had fallen like a delicate veil over her exquisite features, her gentle resolve elegant, almost transcendent. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

Jon watched her go, her skirts whispering over the polished floor as her hair glimmered in the candlelight, and the scent of jasmine lingered for a few moments as he frowned past the ancient, engraved doors, where the shadows had swallowed Lady Alynore.

Only the Queen’s voice distracted him, and only because it was so cold and sharp it might have sliced through the Wall without obstruction.

“The armies of the Reach have been routed…their larders have been emptied…” she said scathingly. “Cersei has stolen the food for the winter, and crippled the strongest of my allies.”

The Queen had turned to seethe at her Lord Hand. Whatever tensions they had briefly set aside for supper were now bubbling over with a ferocity that put the abating storm to shame.

Lord Tyrion’s look of disturbed shame at the Lannisters’ atrocities toward another great House disappeared in a blink as Jon turned to glance at him. Everyone did.

He lay reclined on a padded samite chaise piled with embroidered eiderdown pillows, his head nestled against his companion’s supple breasts. With her dark-hair, teardrop tattoo and no-nonsense accent, Jon liked her. She was refreshing, and almost Northern in her attitudes. And she seemed to live by the words Lord Tyrion had advised Jon the first time they ever met: “Never forget what you are.” She was Tyrion’s whore, and everyone knew it.

But it was more than that, Jon knew, for he had spent enough evenings in Lord Tyrion’s chambers with the Hand of the Queen and the young woman who looked after his every need. Her name was Tisseia, and she had been born and raised in slavery in Volantis. At thirteen, she had had the fortune to be sold to a popular whorehouse where the girls were protected against the worst kinds of abuse that often befell whores - especially bed-slaves.

Tisseia had survived because she had learned how to take care of a man’s every need, before he had to think of them himself. Before they knew they were hungry, she had food plated for them; their wine-cup never emptied; she listened to their grumbles with a sweet smile and kind words of gentle reassurance; massaged aching bones; and, if Tyrion was to be believed, knew how to make a grown man whimper like a newborn babe as she suckled his cock and drew out his release for hours on end, tormenting and teasing him. After, she would tuck him against her pretty breasts and hum lullabies to gentle him to a deep and dreamless sleep.

That she could do such a thing for Tyrion, he had told Jon, had been worth the cost of her freedom.

Somewhere in the last few weeks, Tyrion had stopped calling Tisseia his _whore_ in favour of referring to her as his _companion_ with a touch of respectfulness that made the girl glow with appreciation and pride.

According to both Tyrion and Tisseia, when the Queen’s fleet had made berth in the harbour of Volantis, the Triarchy that ruled the city had agreed between themselves to send the Dragon Queen on her way as soon as possible, without unleashing the sort of chaos that Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen were still recovering from. Thanks to the Queen’s single-minded focus on reaching Westeros as soon as possible to begin her invasion, and the tributes arranged by the Triarchy bequeathed on Queen Daenerys - which would have made any khal in the history of the Dothraki spontaneously combust with fury and envy - the first daughter of Valyria came out of Daenerys Stormborn’s brief visit unscathed. In fact, the Queen had remained on her flagship, her dragons wheeling and whirling over the city, terrorising everyone while her Hand interceded on her behalf with the Triarchy.

After diplomatic negotiations were over and done with, Tyrion had sought out the sceptical, pretty whore he had met in the bowels of the Long Bridge so long ago. Only then had he learned her name; but he had always remembered her dark eyes and pale, square face and his own astonishment that he no longer had it in him to take her to her small chamber and enjoy the hours with her.

“He walked into the brothel and told me he owed me gold dragons and a good fucking, and he always pays his debts,” Tisseia had told Jon, when they had told the story of their first - and second - meeting, dimpling with a sweet sort of irony. Jon liked her accent, and couldn’t help but wonder if her straightforward nature and gentle but direct way of speaking was a Volantene trait she may have shared with his brother’s Volantene wife. Jon knew only that her name had been Talisa Maegyr, and that she had bled to death, stabbed in the belly where Robb’s child had flourished in her womb…

When Jon had asked if she knew of the noble family, Tisseia had replied that everyone in Volantis knew of the Maegyr family, of the Old Blood. Had the Triarchy known that Tyrion belonged to a family that had conspired to murder a daughter of the Old Blood of Volantis, he would have had a harder time talking his way out of Volantis: The Maegyr family was known to be vengeful - and creative. Everyone in the city knew Talisa Maegyr had fled Volantis for Westeros, and never returned. Tyrion had not illuminated the Triarchy on her fate.

Tisseia was a former-slave: Tyrion had bought her freedom.

And she had offered her services - paid to be whatever Tyrion needed her to be. And Jon had seen how… _domestic_ the two were - reminding him of himself and Sansa in the solar, working together: Tisseia kept Tyrion’s rooms in order, his desk uncluttered, ordered his correspondence and paperwork, arranged his daily schedule, somehow knew to massage his lower-back to soothe his aching legs, and coaxed him to bed before he could fall asleep at his desk. She was kind, patient and cheerful, with a clever mind and infallible intuition born of experience and survival as a bed-slave.

According to Tisseia, she had made the Queen bristle when she had asked why Tisseia would remain a whore by profession when her freedom had been bought.

Tisseia had asked what good freedom was without income.

One of the Queen’s flaws was her impracticality. She was a visionary - she paid little attention to the minutiae that made an idea take hold and flourish. How former slaves fed themselves; how an economy was not buried into a depression it would take generations to recover when slavery was ended overnight…

Tyrion had been right, of course, the first day he ever met Tisseia: She truly was a sceptic, one of the few besides Jon who questioned Daenerys Targaryen, even if only in private.

Shrewd Tisseia remained unmoved by the Queen, unimpressed by wealth and power as any who had been abused by it. She was not a zealot; she questioned why Daenerys had promised to create a new world for Slavers’ Bay…only to abandon it at the first sign of conflict.

Now, Tisseia’s dark eyes watched Daenerys carefully even as her fingers sifted gently through Tyrion’s dark golden curls, the picture of indolence. Jon had never known Tisseia before her freedom was bought: but he found it curious that she dressed more modestly than the Dornish, usually in a simple muslin slip with a heavy, flaring skirt - usually off-white or palest pink or sky-blue, embroidered with floral designs in the same colour - with colourful, richly embroidered shawls swathed around her body, belted with jewel-toned satin sashes, intricate gold filigree jewellery glinting at her throat and wrists. Her evening gown tonight had a plunging neckline, shimmering all over with intricate beadwork, and a diaphanous sash from her left shoulder to her right hip, belted with a narrow ribbon of velvet. She was dressed finely, but there was no removing the teardrop tattoo under her eye, or forgetting her nature. She assessed every situation as she assessed the men she took into her bed, weighing the dangers and the potential profit.

Jon watched Tisseia, watching the Queen: The former bed-slave’s body language as the Queen glowered at her Hand was protective, as if she might curl herself around Tyrion, shrouding him in one of her richly-embroidered shawls to shield him from the Queen’s wrath.

Tyrion seemed unperturbed, draining his finely-etched wine glass, and sighed, gazing up at Daenerys with eyes glazed from drink - but just as shrewd and dangerous as he had ever been.

Quietly, Tyrion retorted, “And _you_ had us send the Unsullied to Casterly Rock to claim it. Forgive me, it may be the drink, but _did_ I advise you to send the Dothraki and blockade the Rose Road and the Gold Road to _prevent_ movement between King’s Landing and the Rock? To protect the Reach?” His tone was glib; Tisseia was already dutifully refilling his glass. He squeezed her knee appreciatively, lolling against her chest. His eyes remained fixed on the Queen, challenge in his expression. “‘No’, you insisted, ‘I shall take the Rock, as King’s Landing was taken from me. Cersei shall know how it feels to have her home and all that made her what she is and ever shall be stripped from her’.” He pulled a face at the Queen, letting his feelings be known. “Well. Now the _Tyrells_ know exactly how it feels. Fascinating, really, when you think about it. Deliciously tragic irony.”

“ _Irony_?” Daenerys bit out, her lip curling as her eyes blazed.

“The Targaryens granted House Tyrell the seat of Highgarden and Wardship over the South…and they paid the price of their alliance with _you_ with all Aegon and his sisters granted them,” Tyrion mused. “Their home, their wealth, their status, their lands…their lives.” His eyes raised to Daenerys’ face, dark, grim and challenging. His tone, when he spoke again, was low, dangerous and chiding. “All because you would have _your way_.”

For a moment, Daenerys did not answer. Then she sneered, bristling, “I wonder that your loyalties are not divided between me and the Rock.”

“Even Aegon knew that attacking Casterly Rock was a strategic nightmare, and back then, the dragon truly had three heads,” Tyrion said derisively.

“I have three dragons.”

“And one rider between them with a fixation on vengeance rather than on military strategy,” Tyrion said, his voice withering. He sipped his wine. “I advised you to protect the Reach. An army marches on its stomach: My brother Jaime has been a soldier all his life and he is now commander of Cersei’s armies, you can be sure the attack on Highgarden was his idea. While the Unsullied dealt with a shadow force at the Rock, Jaime took his real army to where the Unsullied weren’t…as Robb Stark did to him at Whispering Wood.”

His smile was soft, ironic, and he glanced at Jon with a hint of respect in his eyes. Their brothers, on opposing sides of a war.

Daenerys’ voice was cold. “You sound impressed.”

“My brother always learned his lessons. In his own time - but he learned them, and he learned them well,” Tyrion said, sipping his wine. “And because you refused to listen, he has shown us both up.”

“I advise you to guard your words cautiously, Lord Hand.”

“Lest I say something to provoke your wrath?” Tyrion smirked. His eyes turned sharp. “Cut off a man’s tongue, you are not condemning him, only confirming that you are afraid to hear what he has to say. I’d wager I would be less than one of Lady Olenna’s little _dainties_ to one of your children. Besides, they know it was _I_ who freed them when their _mama_ chained them up in the dark… They like me.” He grinned unabashedly. “I do wonder…how long it would have been, before the Pit of the Great Pyramid became the next Dragonpit, tens of thousands of smallfolk dead in the fight to kill Targaryen dragons to break their rider’s power…” He finally set his wine-glass down, sitting up straighter and frowning solemnly at Daenerys. “You cannot win this war if you react to every setback with fire and blood, if you insist on seeking vengeance and punishing your enemies…because Cersei will use that to distract you to your own self-destruction, as she has a dozen times before with her enemies unwise enough to let emotion get in the way of tactic.”

“Your father arranged the Red Wedding; that was not your sister’s victory,” Daenerys said curtly.

“Oh, I’m not talking about the War of the Five Kings. Cersei has been playing this game for _decades_ ; she delights in toying with her adversaries before she destroys them utterly. It is only now that she is finally playing on the great stage on her own terms, for no-one but herself,” Tyrion said, waving a hand impatiently. He sighed, frowning darkly, “One way or another, Cersei always gets what she wants. If you believe nothing, believe her brother she has despised and abused since he had the misfortune to kill their mother during his birth. I am one of only two people in this world Cersei has not managed to murder when she set her mind on it - despite her best efforts.”

“Who is the other?” Daenerys asked, her tone cool and aloof. “Perhaps I would do better to have him advise me than the Queen’s abhorred little brother.”

“She is rather busy at present, ruling the North in preparation for war, and what is predicted to be the worst winter in generations,” Tyrion answered tartly. “She doesn’t have time for your conquest.” He turned to Jon, who lingered, watching cautiously - just as the others were. “Tell me, Your Grace…does Lady Stark sigh with relief behind the high walls of Winterfell, out of my sweet sister’s reach?”

Jon stared at Lord Tyrion, and remembered one of his last conversations with Sansa before he had left Winterfell. “No. Sansa knows exactly what Queen Cersei is capable of: She warned me that the Queen has found a way to murder anyone who’s ever stood against her,” Jon said grimly, and Tyrion nodded, his expression an odd mixture of smugness and grim acceptance. “She knows Cersei blames her for her son’s death; any break in the snowstorms will be Cersei’s first opportunity to assassinate Sansa.”

“But Lady Stark does not obsess over it?” Tyrion pressed.

“She’s too busy, preparing Winterfell, ruling the North in my stead,” Jon said honestly. “Cersei is in the back of her mind, always.”

“And the desire for vengeance?”

“Likely buried deep; but to live freely, in her own home once again, surrounded by her people - that is victory in itself over Cersei,” Jon said, and Tyrion smiled warmly. “Besides, there is too much else to worry about that is of more immediate concern.”

The Queen asked icily, “Such as?”

“Food. Warmth,” Jon answered bluntly, staring accusingly at the Queen, not forgetting the fishing, the glasshouses, the Winter’s Town he had led construction of in the shelter of the castle. “Consolidating the strength of the North by reuniting our bannermen.”

“How Robert used to rage about the Northmen,” Tyrion chuckled, clicking his tongue, his expression almost fond. “He couldn’t gentle them any more than he could a dragon, even with your father’s influence.”

“They’re stubborn as ironstone,” Jon smiled appreciatively.

“And you are premier among them,” Tyrion said richly, his smile wondrous and taunting at the same time, as if they were sharing a private joke. “A bastard sworn to the Night’s Watch. Why?”

“They chose me,” Jon said simply. “Some say I _earned_ the crown, for all the mistakes I made.”

“And you made mistakes?”

“Aye,” Jon admitted. “Or they appear to others to be mistakes; or I believe they are, but others disagree.”

“Sparing little Lord Umber and Lady Karstark, for instance,” spoke up Lord Varys, for the first time since Lady Olenna had been carried out.

“You heard about that?”

“Other than the obvious, their being children innocent of their father’s crimes, _why_ spare them the injustice of having their homes ripped from them, bequeathing their lands and titles on other bannermen loyal to you?” Tyrion asked.

“At the Wall, there was a maester, do you remember, Lord Tyrion? Maester Aemon. He was ancient, and kind, and wise… When I was voted Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch by a single vote - _his_ vote - I asked why he had chosen to make me Lord Commander…” Jon sighed. He missed the ancient man, who reminded him of Maester Luwin - how Jon wished Larra could have known Maester Aemon. She had adored Luwin; she would have cherished Aemon. “He said I acted mercifully toward enemies I respected, made allies of them, fought for them… Maester Aemon voted me in as Lord Commander because he believed that a good leader should always choose mercy when faced with the inevitable.”

“And your first act as Lord Commander was to allow the wildlings south of the Wall, when the Wall has held them at bay for a thousand generations,” Lord Varys said, and Jon stared at him. He knew Varys had been working to get the measure of Jon for weeks.

“The Wall wasn’t built to keep Men out,” Jon told him sternly. “The Free Folk would have been condemned to join the Night King’s army if I hadn’t opened the gates to them, old men, children, fearsome warriors and young mothers alike.”

“So it was purely practical, not because you have an affinity for them?” Tyrion asked.

Jon sighed heavily, red hair and firelight flickering on steaming water whispering through his mind. “I’ll always have respect for the Free Folk. I spent too long among them…some of their ways of being have become mine. The True North is in me, now. I know what it is to be free…and I will defend that freedom with my life.” The Queen stiffened. Her council darted covert looks to her, even as they bowed their heads respectfully toward Jon, who cleared his throat, uncomfortable under their gazes after his admission, his memories of the cave… “I bid you all a good evening, my lords…my ladies…”

Whatever argument bubbled up between the Queen and her advisers, Jon didn’t hear it. He strode through the glimmering halls of Dragonstone until he came upon Sea Dragon Tower, and the chambers claimed by the Tyrells.

Their guardsmen, knights sworn to their protection, stood at attention in the antechamber, the torchlight shimmering off their rich velvet-covered armour. The armour was a clever deception - they looked unprotected, but were sworn to House Tyrell and deeply protective of their ladies.

He did not ask for admittance beyond the sturdy engraved door: Just asked after any news of Lady Olenna.

In turn, the guards asked Jon to confirm the rumours. Highgarden _had_ been sacked.

And Daenerys Targaryen was blaming those who had advised her against her desired strategy.

Jon slipped into bed, exhausted, but hours later woke, finding it impossible to sleep with his mind turning over Robb’s fate, and his wife’s, and even Lady Catelyn’s, and that of all his father’s loyal bannermen… He wondered at the fate of those who served House Tyrell, and remembered what Lady Alynore had said…that seventy-three people had had to die for her to become the new Lady Tyrell, heiress of Highgarden and Lady of the Reach.

In a few hours, the little bouquet of Tyrell roses would wake…and their lives would be altered irrevocably.

Sam’s father had betrayed his liege lord and joined the Lannister forces. Jon wasn’t certain how he felt about that - or what Sam would have thought about it. Jon knew his father was a bully: but Sam’s mother had to be wonderful, to have raised such a son as Sam.

Jon dreaded the Queen’s retaliation.

For too long, her advisers had been arguing against unleashing her dragons upon Westeros.

He also couldn’t help but let the niggling anxiety creep in, that the raven-scroll _hadn’t_ brought Sansa’s last words from the North… Every morning he woke, dreading its arrival. Every night, he went to sleep, filled with relief that it hadn’t. Over and over again, he went through the same process - the anguish, and the relief.

With the storms becoming more frequent and more violent, Jon knew their chances of mining more obsidian were dwindling by the day; the time would come far too soon for him to return to Winterfell, with all the dragonglass they had managed to mine.

They’d fight with what they had.

And when they fell to the Night King, he wondered whether the Queen would blame him for not warning her of the danger.


	21. LamFrey Pie

**Valyrian Steel**

_21_

_LamFrey Pie_

* * *

“I find it absurd that I must stand before you and dispel a _rumour_.”

Brittle tension crackled from Larra as she frowned down the smoky hall. Night had come earlier due to a snowstorm, and on this rare occasion they had spared the candles for an important announcement to their bannermen that they had not realised they would be giving, not until the hour of the wolf last night, when a raven had arrived.

Behind Larra, an enormous log popped and snapped as the flames consumed it, the enormous hearth radiating heat and light to those sat behind the high table - Sansa, in her heavy fur-trimmed cloak and Brandon, in his clever chair, pale hands folded in his lap - and the light cast flickering shadows across their bannermen’s faces. The little bear sat at the front, near as she could get to the high table: Her young face was stern and unyielding as ever, dark little eyes shrewd, watchful and expectant. On the other side of the hall sprawled the Blackfish, who had watched Larra with undisguised distrust until he had watched her long enough to take his own measure of her - not rely on what he knew of his niece Catelyn’s hatred of her husband’s bastards…

Lady Brienne’s armour gleamed in the candlelight, and little Jon Umber sat with unusual patience beside Ragnar, who was eyeing the Magnar of the Thenns and Lord Cerwyn with equal scepticism. Clustered around the fearsome Mors Umber were his wildling grandsons - the enormous Bors and Umber - and his great-grandchildren, young warriors Larra’s age, Ivar, Hvitserk, Freydis and Gudrun - tall as oak trees, all muscle, they were ferocious, with wicked senses of humour, fierce loyalty to each other, and a deep appreciation that their _great_ - _grandfather_ still lived to fight beside them against the Night King’s hordes. If the Free Folk respected anything, it was a fierce _old_ warrior. Spearwives Karsi, in her shellfish-armoured furs, and Morna, with her weirwood mask, leaned against the ancient walls, their children clustered around them whittling arrows, and Tormund rested with his elbows on his knees, staring unblinkingly at Larra as the Northern lords quieted, and Lord Royce scowled querulously at his own men to be silent.

For days, Larra had quietly endured being _pestered_.

One quiet, shy lord she had handled with dignity and kindness - for the both of them, as she sent him on his way, his shoulders drooping somewhat with disappointment and faint embarrassment.

The second, who caught her after supper in a busy corridor, insisted, taking her arm to confirm, eager to express his interest.

The third was a Valeman, chivalrous and kind, appreciative of her ferocity, her dedication to her family, and her cleverness - they had played cyvasse on occasion in the solar: He had been teaching Sansa, and admired the cyvasse sets Larra and her brothers had carved themselves. He had been keen to tell Larra of the wild beauty of his lands in the Vale, and to tell her how _incomparably_ _beautiful_ he found her.

The fourth had interrupted her sparring sessions. Along with the spearwives of the True North, Larra taught Northern girls how to wield a spear and a short knife with lethal precision. The fourth man to approach her had pestered her so much while she was trying to demonstrate accurate ways to hold a knife so as not to end up injuring oneself instead of the enemy, that the girls had become thoroughly confused - and Larra had lost her patience and scolded the man.

Each of them - and there had been more, three yesterday and four the day before that - seemed to be under the impression that the King in the North was going to marry Larra to one of his bannermen, or his allies - whichever impressed the King the most, whichever the King deemed worthy of his twin-sister.

Larra had wondered vaguely whether she would have to consider such a thing in the future - whether the change in Jon’s status meant a certain constricting of the freedoms she had enjoyed as a bastard with two true-born sisters who would be married off for political and dynastic purposes… But she hadn’t imagined she would have to address the issue quite so soon - in the midst of war preparations, no less.

“I have been approached by those who believe my brother is intent on marrying me off as reward for their part in the Battle of the Bastards,” Larra said grimly, frowning. Forget the fact that Jon had not returned, and no raven had been sent to Dragonstone to inform him of _her_ return… “Let me assure you now, that I am no _prize_ to be won. Nor shall I suffer to be _given_ _away_ by my brother, who as yet does not know I am alive… Nor do I want you to believe that I - or my sister Sansa - are _rewards_ for loyalty, which we consider to be the every base standard we expect of each of our bannermen.”

Unflinching, she gazed around the hall, levelling her intimidating gaze on each and every face turned toward her. Her expression was not unkind, but it was stern and unyielding. And because she had addressed the issue bluntly, without calling out those individuals who had pestered her to distraction, they respected her for setting the score. She sighed grimly. “I believe I know where this rumour began, and I thank my lords for being direct in approaching me to confirm or deny the truth of the thing. If it comes to it, you can be sure _I_ will choose the man I deem worthy to share my life with, for my own reasons.”

She sighed, gazing around the room; Lady Mormont gazed at her with a sort of curious admiration. Ser Brynden was smirking, chuckling softly to himself; Lord Royce nodded.

“I trust we can all get back to our work,” Larra said, sighing. She exchanged a glance with Sansa, who nodded. They had decided to do it this way - Larra dispelling the rumours, admonishing the lords, before delivering them news as a balm to wounded pride. “On to other news of greater importance. A raven-scroll arrived late last night from the Riverlands. Sansa, would you care to do the honours?”

Sansa gazed around the darkened hall, her eyes flitting for only a heartbeat on Lord Baelish, who stood by the wall with narrowed eyes fixed on Larra, dislike drifting from him. “No, I think you and Brandon can give a clearer telling of what’s happened.”

“The raven-scroll was sealed with a direwolf sigil,” Larra said, holding up a crinkled raven-scroll. It had arrived damp, and they had had to decipher the writing - luckily the hand that wrote it was not elegant, rather more like chicken-scratches, and the uneven lettering remained legible in spite of the bleeding of the ink. “It read simply, ‘The North remembers. Winter came for House Frey’.”

Low talk turned to louder conversation as the lords of the North and of the Vale debated what the raven-scroll referred to. _Winter came_ … Stark words. The Freys - oathbreakers, violators of guest-right, murderers…

Brandon spoke, his voice gentle but eerie… For a moment, Larra looked at him and saw Old Nan, frightening them with terrifying stories of the Nightfort - the Seventy-Nine Sentinels; the thing that came in the night; Mad Axe; King Sherrit’s Curse; and Brave Danny Flint - his voice lulling and spine-tingling at the same time. The hall fell silent to listen, as it always did when Brandon spoke.

Very quickly, the Northmen and the Valemen had learned to respect Brandon’s voice. Brandon raised his dark eyes from his lap, and in his quiet, unnerving voice, he told a story: “A young serving-girl murdered Black Walder and Lothar and baked them into a pie, serving it to Lord Walder Frey… ‘Damn fine pie,’ he told her, asking for another slice… She called it ‘LamFrey pie’. It was then he found the first finger, the curl of an ear among the bacon… As he recoiled in horror, the serving-girl slit his throat to the bone. ‘The last thing you’re going to see is a Stark smiling down at you,’ she told him. The serving-girl took his face to wear for herself, and became the new Lord of the Riverlands. Every Frey was called to the Twins to feast their triumph… Arbour wine was poured, and gulped down greedily as the man they thought was Walder Frey toasted them… The wine was bittersweet with poison, they realised too late. ‘Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe,’ said the serving-girl wearing Walder Frey’s face. Only one was spared, the Late Walder Frey’s new young bride. The serving girl who had become the Lord of the Riverlands removed Walder Frey’s face, finally revealing her own. She turned, and in a voice soft as falling snow, told Lady Frey, ‘When people ask you what happened here, tell them the North remembers. Tell them _winter came_ for House Frey.’ Arya Stark walked out of the Twins, leaving no-one alive to stop her.”

Larra turned sharply to stare at Brandon. Sansa sat up even straighter, her blue eyes fixed on Brandon, whose smile was bland but oddly taunting.

“ _Arya_?” Sansa blurted, sharing a shocked glance with Larra. Brandon had failed to mention _that_ last night, when he recounted to them in detail what had happened at the Twins.

Instead of answering them directly, Brandon murmured, “Now she guides her horse from the Inn at the Crossroads, heading toward King’s Landing before a siege can choke the city.”

Larra stared at Brandon.

Sansa had told Larra that Lady Brienne herself had last seen Arya, in the Vale - headed away from the Bloody Gate after learning of Lady Arryn’s death. Sansa had wondered aloud by how many miles they had missed each other as she left the Eyrie with Lord Baelish to come north, following Littlefinger’s assassination of the deranged Lady Lysa.

So they knew that, at least until about two years ago, Arya had still been alive - against all reason.

Arya had been accompanied, of all the people in Westeros, by the _Sandor Clegane_ , unexpected and begrudging protector of the younger Stark sister, after offering to be the elder’s sworn sword.

Perhaps the Hound had an affinity for direwolves.

Either way, that had been a long while ago: and Lady Brienne still seemed drenched in shame that she had defeated the Hound in single-combat yet lost Arya Stark, to whom she was pledged to protect by a blood-oath sworn to Lady Catelyn.

While all around the hall voices broke out, grumbles of confusion at Brandon’s story, cheers, even laughter, Larra frowned at Brandon.

He had not mentioned that it was _Arya_ who had eradicated House Frey…

That she had murdered _children_.

_Every man, woman and child bearing the name of Frey…even those denied it by the nature of their birth… Bastards and true-borns alike, the Freys met their end when winter came…_

When Brandon had told them, last night in the solar, he had quoted the Freys’ killer word-for-word: “ _You didn't slaughter every one of the Starks…no, no. That was your mistake. You should have ripped them all out root and stem. Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe_.”

Had Arya killed the Freys?

Had she killed innocent children?

Wasn’t that the point of what she had told the Freys as they choked on their own blood and bile? Their mistake was in leaving _Arya_ alive to come back and seek vengeance: She had returned, to eradicate every last trace, every last Frey... She had avenged the Red Wedding. Avenged the assassination of the King in the North; the murder of his Queen, and Robb’s baby growing in her belly; avenged the savaged Lady Catelyn; and the entire Northern army, butchered…

She had sent a message throughout Westeros, loud and clear for all to hear.

 _Winter is coming_.

And nothing could stop it.

Was it Arya?

Larra knew Brandon did not lie; he saw through every disguise.

But Larra…dreaded to think that _their_ Arya, as a child so fiercely devoted to justice, kind and charming, who made friends easily with deep bonds, had become so ruthless, so warped by all they had yet to learn had happened to her, that she would kill innocents.

Brutal efficacy over mercy.

It made her no better than the Freys and Lannisters she had sworn vengeance upon.

Slowly, realisation settled in among the Northmen. Shouts of jubilation and raucous cheers echoed off the stone walls as the relatives of those butchered at the Red Wedding started to celebrate.

Some of them turned to the high table, against which Larra was perched on her bottom, and behind which Sansa rested quietly in her high-backed, direwolf-engraved chair and Brandon gazed vacantly at his pale hands in his lap. They sought repetition of what they had all heard; that the Red Wedding had truly, finally, brutally, been avenged. “The Freys are dead?”

“Every man, woman and child bearing that name, and that of Rivers with the blood of Walder Frey flowing through their veins,” Larra clarified quietly, and the hall quietened as Brandon stirred in his long fur-trimmed robe, raising his pale solemn face, illuminated by candlelight to make his eyes glitter with ancient knowledge.

“The Late Walder Frey broke guest-right…and the gods paid him his due, as they did the Rat Cook of the Nightfort,” he murmured, and a shudder seemed to pass through the hall as the Northmen remembered the harrowing nursery tales. His smile faraway but fond, Bran raised his face to Larra and sighed, “Arya always was fond of that story.”

“The Freys are dead!”

“Winter came for them indeed!” A raucous laugh rippled through the hall, a few cheers echoed, but Larra reached for a piece of parchment on the table beside her, and a few men craned their necks to get a good look, anticipation written on their usually grim faces.

“There’s more we haven’t yet told you,” she said quietly, and the hall fell silent again. She gave a tiny smile, still troubled by the worry that their Arya had truly murdered babies. “After the Freys were killed, the dungeons were emptied… There were survivors of the Red Wedding, after all, and now they make their way north.” She cleared her throat, lifting the parchment, and cast her gaze across the hall. “I shall read out their names, provided by Brandon… I know some of you will be hoping to hear a name fall from my lips, and if my words could breathe life into the dead and return them to you…” She paused, frowning slightly: She knew the power to resurrect the dead existed in this world, but she would _never_ dare wield it… She had experienced the very worst it was capable of. “We are only sorry that we cannot return all your loved ones to you…

“The names…” She cleared her throat, and her voice was clear as crystal over the breathless silence that seemed to grip the hall. There were over a dozen names, but they were too few. She read through them all carefully, and saw tears shimmering on ancient windswept faces, or young men turning pale with relief, and grim resilience as a hoped-for name never came. The last names, she smiled as she read, because she remembered those who belonged to them vividly, and had been glad to know they had survived: “Maege Mormont. Lyra Mormont. Jorelle Mormont, known as Jory. And lastly, the Greatjon.”

The little bear shot to her feet, though it made little difference when she sat beside the tallest of the Thenns and Ice River clansmen, and her own sworn warriors who were tall as oaks even sitting down. She looked Larra directly in the eye, forcefully repeating, “My mother is alive?”

“Aye…but she will be altered,” Larra said gently, maintaining eye-contact with Lyanna. She had a soft spot for the fierce young girl, who never failed to arrive early for her training sessions with the other youths. “They all will, after such long captivity. We have sent ravens to Greywater Watch and Moat Cailin, to redirect these men to Winterfell.”

“What does this mean for the Riverlands?” someone called from the back. “Could they send aid?”

“Lord Edmure Tully was one of those released from the dungeons; he has returned to claim Riverrun, with his wife Lady Roslin, and their daughter,” Larra said delicately, aware that Ser Brynden Tully sat staring grimly at her. “But he is in no position to call the banners and send men north… The men accompanying Ser Brynden are welcome, and much appreciated.”

“Edmure’s home, is he? Bloody useless, that boy is,” the Blackfish grunted. He sighed heavily, “I suppose if I survive this war, I’ll have to head back south and show him how the thing is done.”

“I am sure Lord Tully would appreciate your wisdom and experience, Uncle, as I have,” said Sansa with unhurried elegance; the Blackfish snorted, but his eyes glittered fondly as he gazed at his great-niece, far more beautiful than her mother ever had been, but every inch her mother’s daughter.

“Well, you have good sense,” Ser Brynden told Sansa. “Wish I could say the same for that puffed-up popinjay.”

“Uncle…”

“Alright, alright…” Ser Brynden capitulated, his lips still twitching in an ironic smile. “I’m off to give the young ones their shooting lessons. Milady, if you’d lead the way.”

“Thank you, Ser Brynden,” said the little bear, and she turned and strode the length of the hall, the candlelight turning her shadow into that of a giant.

“If you can shoot straight with all that’s going on in your head, you’ll be unshakeable on the battlefield,” Ser Brynden said, as he disappeared out of the great hall, reaching out to muss Lady Lyanna’s braids - the same way Uncle Benjen used to tousle Larra’s, the same way Jon used to muss Arya’s…

“Leave off!” the little bear grumbled, dodging away, for a heartbeat just a young girl being teased, and Ser Brynden’s amiable chuckle lingered richly on the smoky air. Larra couldn’t help think that little Lady Mormont was unstoppable anyway.

“Tormund,” said Brandon gently, and the redheaded wildling grunted expressively, pushing to his feet to stride up to the high table, leaning against it with curled fists.

The first time they had met, Tormund had stared at Larra, then laughed deeply and out of nowhere, startling people. He had laughed until the corners of his pale-blue eyes crinkled, flashing his fierce white teeth, and had clapped a hand on Larra’s shoulder. “ _Never thought I’d meet anyone prettier than Jon Snow_ ,” he’d laughed, and Free Folk and Night’s Watchmen alike had laughed.

Because Jon _was_ pretty: and Larra was more beautiful still.

She couldn’t help but think there would have been fewer men approaching her over the last few weeks, had she not shed her furs for the clothing Sansa had had the Northern ladies sew for her. Suddenly she seemed respectable again; ‘proper’ clothing and her hair combed and braided had made her _desirable_.

And Lord Baelish had used that to his advantage, his first move on the cyvasse board, a game he was now playing against her.

Larra ignored Littlefinger, still leaning with seeming disinterest, looking almost benign, against the wall: She focused on Tormund, who approached, his eyes fixed on Bran. The Free Folk held a certain wary reverence for him, more accustomed to greenseers and wargs than their counterparts who lived south of the Wall, more readily accepting of Brandon’s wisdom, and respectful of his awesome powers with an unyielding faith even Larra found troublesome to emulate. She yearned for her brother Bran to return; the Free Folk had never known him. They revered the Three-Eyed Raven of their ancient songs.

They loved nothing more than to hear Brandon’s stories of the Age of Heroes, before the Wall, when they had been one united clan… They loved nothing better than to hear Larra singing in the Old Tongue, songs taught her by the Children, which time had otherwise taken from the world…

“It’s time,” Brandon told Tormund softly. The wild man frowned. “Time for you to leave Winterfell. I shall choose men to accompany you; you must go to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Return to Castle Black, make your journey atop the wall as far east as the sea. There you shall wait. The Brotherhood Without Banners makes its way to the Wall, seeking to go beyond it, to a mountain in the shape of an arrowhead…”

Larra frowned, watching Brandon… The mountain shaped like an arrowhead. He had mentioned that mountain to Larra before, when they still resided beneath the tree, when the Three-Eyed Raven, Lord Bloodraven, had still lingered in this life to mentor him.

The mountain shaped like an arrowhead had once been home to a stone henge sacred to the Children on its heather-carpeted slopes…and a spiral grove of weirwoods, each of them carved with its own unique face ruby-red with sap… It was there, bound to the largest, most ancient weirwood with a truly harrowing face, that the Children had plunged a dagger of obsidian into the heart of a man, their captive, their enemy.

One of the First men. The first White Walker. The Night King.

Seeing what he had become, his brother…his _brother_ had united the First Men…had allied with the Children to stop the genocide of Man and Children alike…had fathered Brandon the Builder, born during the Long Night. Brandon, who had finally beat back the winter…and built a great keep where he had finally subdued the Night King, every stone of the endless spiral crypts spreading beneath the castle steeped in ancient blood-magic to protect every generation of Starks that followed, to give them a safe place to wait, and from which to wage war again when the time came…

Until now, the Starks of Winterfell had forgotten… Now Brandon knew; and because he knew, and because Larra had the blood of the First Men and the blood of Valyria rushing through her veins, the magic alive and as strong as any Brandon the Builder had ever wielded to enchant the stones of the crypts of the Kings of Winter…they had the same chance Brandon the First had had. Because the Children had taught her the same song they had taught Brandon’s father, and Brandon, and Brandon’s children, the song lost over the millennia during which the White Walkers became legends, and then myths, and then nothing more than fairy-tales…

Larra turned to Brandon, frowning.

“How would they know to go to the arrowhead mountain?” she murmured darkly.

“Visions in the flame,” Brandon answered, his mouth twisting into a queer smile, and Larra frowned at him.

Brandon raised his dark, glittering eyes to Tormund. “Detain the men who seek the mountain, but do them no harm. You will need them. You must leave tonight, as soon as the storm lifts. You will meet a herd of elk three days’ ride from here; one will suffice to feed your men until you reach Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The Night’s Watch left boats: A bob of Skagosi seals chases shoals of ice-cod, and they will fight a blessing of narwhals for them. Once you see the narwhals’ great horns breach the ice at the shore, take to the water to fish all you can; for a pod of weirwhales chase the narwhal, and will attack your boats as prey.”

“You want us to man to the Wall for you,” Tormund said, staring at Brandon, and nodded. Tormund grinned tauntingly at Mors Umber, who had approached the high table. “Looks like we’re the Night’s Watch now.”

“Hvitserk shall go with you, with Karsi and Hali. Asa and Sigurd of the Thenn. Yaskier also, Long Tom, Kenner and Greef of the Watch,” Brandon said quietly, and those Free Folk he had named exchanged a sombre look before nodding to themselves, while the Night’s Watchmen frowned in consternation that the wildlings so easily accepted orders from a southerner. But they did not understand: the Free Folk were raised with a fearful reverence of greenseers and an appreciation for wargs.

As Mors Umber leaned in to speak with Sansa about his nephew the Greatjon’s release from the Twins’ dungeons, Larra asked Brandon, “Why them?”

“I don’t know, yet,” Brandon said mildly.

“You didn’t mention that it was Arya who wiped out the Freys,” Larra murmured.

“You are unhappy,” Brandon said, his eyes glittering even as people dispersed, taking the news of the LamFrey Pie with them to spread throughout the castle and Winter’s Town, and the candles were snuffed out rather than left to burn themselves to stubs. Every inch of candlelight was precious.

“ _Was_ it Arya?”

“It was,” Brandon confirmed quietly. Something flickered in his eyes, and for a moment, the candles beside him threw his face into relief and a young man shone through those dark eyes, wincing with discomfort as he leaned toward Larra. “Arya has endured much… She is _altered_ now, even more ferocious than she was as a girl, and her heart burns with a feral vengefulness that yours will never know.”

Larra frowned. “You think I do not know vengeance?”

Bran lifted his pale hand, to curl his long, slender, warm fingers against her scarred ones, and the little boy she remembered gazed beseechingly from his dark eyes. “Larra, you enduringly _hope_. Arya has learned to _hate_. It consumes her, has kept her warm, kept her sharp and swift all these years.” Bran eyes were agonised. “Our sister never needed a knight; she has become a sword. She eradicated our enemy…and made sure to remind every House in Westeros that House Stark endures for a reason, just as Sansa reminded them at the Battle of the Bastards. In Arya’s mind, it was necessary: In her mind, they did far worse to us. Instead of dealing the direwolf a swift and brutal death, they left it wounded and in agony to endure horror. In her mind she was merciful… Arya has forgotten warmth, and tenderness, and what it feels like to be all those things, and content. She will not be satisfied until every last name is struck from her list.”

Larra did not ask what list Bran meant.

It was a little too much to hear that their Arya had become a murderer without remorse. Little Arya Underfoot, Arya Horseface, who had come to the twins anguished that she, herself, was Ned Stark’s bastard, so closely resembling them, no hint of the Tully auburn hair or blue eyes in her… Their champion, their playmate, their dearest love, their little sister…

Murdering an entire House as vengeance for the pain they had caused her.

“These men…who seek the arrowhead mountain… Do they know _why_ they seek it?” Larra asked Bran instead.

“The dead march upon it. They gather from all corners of the True North…”

“The King is ready to make his war.”

“Yes,” Brandon whispered, and his eyes glazed over, staring into the distance. Larra sighed, glancing past him, to one of the servants, who slowly wheeled Brandon around to face the hearth, close to the warmth.

The hall was still rumbling with noise as people mingled, ladies entering with their knitting and embroidery and their children, servants moving the enormous loom from beside the hearth in front of the fire for Sansa to see it: A group of noblewomen were working together on a grand tapestry to replace the one that used to hang in the Great Hall, burned by Ironborn.

Their first design had been unravelled the night Larra had returned with Brandon: Now, the lowest boughs of a weirwood were starting to show their vibrant scarlet leaves in the top-left corner of the tapestry, while a shimmering icy Wall carved diagonally from the lower-left corner to a third of the way along the top of the tapestry, slashing diagonally upwards, a blazing fire and an advancing army of Free Folk on one side with Baratheon cavalry in the distance, and on the other side of the Wall, Castle Black’s great switchback staircase intricately woven above the small stronghold under attack by wildlings. Winterfell dominated the lower-right corner of the tapestry, and Jon fought a battle on the misty moors that took up most of the tapestry. He was identifiable by the Stark sigil inverse on his leather brigandine - a white direwolf on grey, instead of the grey-on-white granted to true-born sons - and Ghost at his side, the Free Folk guarding him and a giant protecting him. At the top-right corner, the Knights of the Vale rode in, and Sansa’s horse had begun to be woven, the deep navy velvet of her gown draped elegantly, the ends of her vibrant braid just begun, mirroring the vibrant red of the other side of the tapestry. Amid the chaos of the great battle, the enemy had no features, no sigils, just like the carved settle in the solar. It was the Battle of the Bastards, but no-one would remember the name of the first House that had fallen to the winter Snows when they came down from the Wall.

The first time Larra picked up a sketching pencil since she had fled Winterfell was to draw the design for the tapestry. It was no good _telling_ the ladies what they would never be able to imagine; she knew she had to _show_ them. So she had sat down and sketched, one afternoon in the solar, as Sansa played cyvasse with her Knight of the Vale. She had been very specific with the detail and accuracy with which she wanted the Bloodraven woven into the tapestry, Leif and the last of the Children of the Forest, sweet Hodor, Summer, Meera, and even Larra herself. She had brought out her colours, providing intricate studies and sketches and small paintings to the dyers. They were a motley ensemble, beneath the tree, but that made their presence in the tapestry a point of curiosity for the viewer to remark upon.

She had sketched the day Lord Bloodraven had given her Dark Sister.

The day he had given her a name.

It was more important to her than she had realised until she set pencil to paper, for the North to accurately commemorate the legitimised bastard of King Aegon IV, Lord Brynden Targaryen - the Bloodraven, her great-great-great-great-great uncle - and Hodor, and Summer, and the last of the Children of the Forest.

Now the ladies of the North worked happily, most nights singing as they wove the great tapestry in front of the enormous hearth, tonight celebrating that winter had come for House Frey, the Red Wedding avenged. A weight off everyone’s lungs, it felt like. Delight seemed to surge around Larra wherever she went in the castle that night.

For a few moments, Sansa and Larra paused, quietly watching the women weave Sansa’s likeness into the tapestry, stern and beautiful, her hair vibrant - tonight, she wore her hair the same way she had worn it for the Battle of the Bastards, and the ladies immortalised it in the weft - even the intricate details of the direwolf embellishing the bosom of her velvet gown, the fine colouring of the furs draped around her shoulders… Larra’s eyes drifted to the left side of the tapestry, for some reason drawn to Hodor’s likeness. Brutally strong, with the smile of purest innocence, easily frightened, gentle and kind… Larra missed cuddling up to him to sleep, his unwavering patience and contentedness, even in the wastes of the frozen Land of Always Winter. It had hurt her stomach to see his likeness taking form in the weft, but now she was grateful for it. His gentle smile was how she would remember him, not…

She let out a sigh, turning to Sansa finally. “Well?”

The chatter of the ladies masked their voices, impossible to hear their quiet murmuring, as one of the Night’s Watchmen, Yaskier, lent his handsome voice in an attempt to woo the daughters of the North. He was composing again, Larra thought, her eyes on the lanky and perpetually-cheerful Yaskier, who had been forced to join the Watch after “hiding his sausage in the wrong pantry” once too often, or with the wrong lady, Larra wasn’t entirely sure which.

“He’s slinked off,” Sansa told her, sipping her herb tea as she watched the women weaving.

“For a first attempt, I must admit I am underwhelmed by the effort,” Larra admitted, frowning. “Well, I suppose, why should he use his best efforts on a bastard? What next, do you think?”

She eyed Sansa shrewdly. Larra often gave Sansa lessons in cyvasse in the solar - where Larra also privately tutored Sansa in how to wield the knife Jon insisted Sansa wore always on her person - and wanted to know her sister’s opinion. Larra had her own.

Littlefinger was angling to isolate Sansa. It didn’t take a greenseer to know it. According to Sansa, Littlefinger had always desired the Iron Throne: Now, he desired to make Sansa his queen and get his heirs on her. With her came the North - if he could get rid of Jon without being tied to the King’s demise.

Then Larra had shown up, dragging Brandon with her. Ned Stark’s only surviving trueborn son. The King’s ferocious twin-sister; and the legitimate heir to Winterfell.

Littlefinger was too clever, too forward-thinking to let their reappearance _spoil_ his plans: He would simply adjust them.

Larra knew all too well that there were only two ways in which any obstacle could ever be approached: One could grit your teeth and force one’s way _through_ , or one could assess the situation, move around the obstacle, and adjust.

Now Lord Baelish had to account for the removal not only of Jon, but of Larra and of Bran, too. And at every instance, appear to have had nothing to do with each tragedy that struck Lady Stark’s family as she was left with fewer family members but the enduring presence and kindness of Lord Baelish.

His first attempt: Using the Northern bannermen and Knights of the Vale to whisk Larra away, physically removing her from Winterfell. Then, in Jon’s absence, and without his great protector…what could a crippled young man do against trained assassins? One had already made an attempt on his life, before he had been forced from his home: Who was to say whoever had sent the first would not take opportunity to send others? What if they succeeded? Lady Sansa would be undisputed heiress of the Northern kingdom.

“He likes to remind me that you are my bastard _half_ -sister,” Sansa sniffed delicately, watching the weavers work and sing, their children playing at their feet. “I may have begun to slip little details about how Mother and I treated you in the past into our conversations. Conversations about your _place_ at Winterfell…if things had gone another way for our family.”

“We think alike. He’ll use childhood enmities against you, reminding you just how much you disdained me as the reminder to your mother of Father dishonouring his wedding vows…” Larra sighed, and Sansa frowned. She hadn’t yet brought up the subject of Larra’s true parentage since that day in the baths, but Larra knew she had been thinking on it, often. She always got the same look on her face. “And me, he’ll taunt about my loss of status as castellan of Winterfell, all I was raised to ever be. Now I am nothing, because you’ve taken it from me; and by right as the eldest and Jon’s twin, it should be mine.”

“Exactly,” Sansa sighed heavily, sipping her herb tea, her expression grim. She narrowed her eyes at a gaggle of young ladies clustered around a tall, attractive young man all in black, and exchanged a look with Larra, who smirked. She caught sight of one of the mothers, her fingers deftly weaving bobbins, her eyes shrewd on the young man, and she raised an eyebrow at the young man. He grinned widely, reassuring one of the girls who seemed particularly smitten with him, to stride over to them, his clear blue eyes sparkling.

“Yaskier - leave her alone,” Larra warned. The perpetually cheerful young man bounded over, gushing.

“I’m in _love_.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake - _again_?”

“This time is entirely different.”

“It always is,” Larra chided. “Yaskier, if I get one more dirty look from the ladies, I shall string you up to the pillory and do _unseemly_ things with you.” She sidled up to him, very close, her eyes alight and her lips twitching with delicious irony that made Yaskier’s eyes focus on her mouth, leaning into her, shuddering with suppressed desire.

“Don’t tempt him,” Sansa warned, rolling her eyes in faint amusement.

“Wicked woman,” Yaskier pouted at Larra, his eyes glittering with mirth. They enjoyed this game. “You know I’m vulnerable.”

“To what?” Larra scoffed.

“Fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman,” he purred. Larra rolled her eyes, levelling a grim smirk at him.

“A blade to the balls may yet cure you.”

“You are wise, fair one.”

“Shameless strumpet,” Larra smirked.

“Strumpet? Perhaps,” Yaskier grinned unabashedly. “Adoring supplicant? Eternally yours.”

“Go,” Larra laughed, smiling, and gently pushed Yaskier away, her hands on his stomach. “You should be sparring.”

“I thought we were,” Yaskier grinned easily. “Shall we sing tonight?”

“Ah, using me to impress one of your heart’s desires?”

“It is my last night at Winterfell,” Yaskier said, making his eyes large and tragic. “I go to the Wall, who knows what awaits me.”

“Death, most likely,” Sansa remarked.

“I shall need consolation - and the courage to meet my fate with my head held high,” Yaskier said.

“And practically skipping, I’d wager,” Larra smirked.

“Off you go,” Sansa chided, smiling. “Cease bothering my ladies.”

“My ladies…” Yaskier bowed to them each in turn, with a flourish.

“You enjoyed that,” Sansa murmured, leaning into Larra, her lips twitching, her expression slightly smug. “ _Flirting_.”

“I blame you entirely. No-one looked twice at me,” Larra said defensively. “Then you bathed me, prettied me up and put me in fine clothes. You _civilised_ me.”

“Well, not entirely,” Sansa smirked. “A direwolf can only be gentled and befriended, after all, never truly tamed.”

“Do you think he’s afraid of a nip?” Larra mused, as they watched Yaskier, already distracted by another pretty girl sashaying past him.

“No, and I think that’s why he ended up at the Wall in the first place,” Sansa said, and Larra grinned in agreement. “I should go, seek out Lord Baelish. He’ll be itching to pour poison in my ear about you addressing the rumour he started, and so boldly.”

“Bold?” Larra scoffed, raising her eyebrows. “Northwomen are often accused for being straightforward to the point of bluntness.”

“He has only to look at Lady Mormont to know that is true.”

“I like her,” Larra said warmly.

“She doesn’t much like me.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Larra said, shrugging. “She does respect you.”

“He’ll twist them against Jon.”

“Oh, of course he will.”

“He’ll want us at each other’s throats… He’ll want me fearful of you, paranoid - jealous,” Sansa said, turning sombre. “Try to turn us against each other.”

“This is going to be exhausting,” Larra sighed, already feeling tired at the prospect of what they had ahead of them. _Politics._ “I am no actress.”

“You put on plenty of puppet-plays for us when we were little.”

“That was _writing_ …it was _play_ …” Larra said, surprised. “I thought you’d forgotten those. You were so insistent, you were a _lady_ ; you had no need to spend time in the nursery with the little ones, playing with dolls.”

Sansa grew quiet, watching the women weaving, without really seeing them. She was far away. Softly, she said, “Father gave me a doll, after he killed Lady. I was so ungrateful, still angry at him… I told him I hadn’t played with dolls since I was eight… I slept with it every night in King’s Landing… _every night…_ Father gave me the doll the day Arya and I argued at supper, and Arya dented the table she kept stabbing it with her knife. She said she was practicing to kill the prince… Father tried to warn us to be kind to each other. I didn’t listen.”

“You were little girls,” Larra said gently. She had been sixteen. It seemed absurd now, how young she had been, ruling the entire North for Robb as he rode to war, little more than a boy…

“I was older than Lady Mormont is now,” Sansa said quietly.

“You’ve had a different life than she has.”

“She’s had a different life than I had because of our family,” Sansa said. “Nothing we do happens on its own.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“The Bloodraven… He told me that what I do in this life will echo through eternity,” Larra said softly. She had always admired those words. They had such gravitas. “It means the same thing: Our choices touch others. There’s no escaping that, only minimising the damage.”

“Minimum-loss strategy,” Sansa said, gazing at her, and Larra frowned. She knew that phrase, had coined it while planning her campaigns against their brothers in the old schoolroom. But Sansa had enjoyed dancing and embroidery with Septa Mordane, would never have cared to listen to her discussions with their brothers about war, strategy and economics. “Your progresses.”

“My what?” Sansa looked surprised.

“Maester Luwin. He wrote down every lesson; every observation regarding your education,” Sansa explained, and Larra stared at her. She looked almost apologetic, even abashed. “They’re fascinating to read. I’ll have them sent to your chamber, along with the other things Maester Wolkan unearthed in the Maester’s tower… Your lessons have taught me how to be a true warden of the North… Before that, I learned to become an actress. To pretend. To be what they wanted me to be, so I could survive.”

“It must have been exhausting.”

“It was.”

“And yet you’d happily endure it again, to snare a mockingbird,” Larra sighed.

“It shan’t take too long,” Sansa said, her tone sensible. “The strength of the Vale is behind us; I have had Lord Royce’s loyalty ever since I intimated Lord Baelish is responsible for Lord Arryn’s death… We just have to play the game long enough to spring the trap and let Littlefinger tumble in, without realising he’s been snared until it is quite too late.”

“And you trust that he will.”

“He’s too arrogant in his own cleverness,” Sansa said grimly. “The day you arrived, just before the guard came to call me to the gate…Littlefinger told me something I shan’t ever forget: ‘Don’t fight in the North, or the South. Fight every battle, everywhere, always, in your mind. Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way, and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before’.”

“He doesn’t know everything.”

“No,” Sansa said curtly. “And he has underestimated an enemy before.”

“Everyone who’s ever underestimated you is dead now.”

“Most of them.”

“Well…do your worst, little sister,” Larra sighed, her smile twinkling and sad. Sisters had a unique viciousness when provoked. Only they had the weapons to truly torment each other. “And I will endeavour to do my very best to fill my role.”

“Believe me…Littlefinger will make it easy for you…” Sansa warned her, looking unhappy at the prospect of what they must dredge up to ensnare the mockingbird. “What Brandon said earlier…you are uncomfortable at the idea that it was perhaps Arya who murdered the Freys.”

“Can our sister have changed so much that she’d murder innocents?”

“To protect our family, what wouldn’t you do?” Sansa asked, after a moment’s thoughtful silence. She sighed, glancing sidelong at Larra. She asked hesitantly, “How must it be done? I know Father took you with our brothers, but I… I would do the thing properly, the Northern way. But Father never taught me…”

Father never taught his daughters how ugly the world was. He had protected their innocence - for perhaps too long, as it turned out.

Larra sighed heavily, remembering the scent of frost-bitten heather, wildflowers and fresh blood…

“The blood of the First Men flows through our veins, and for thousands of years we’ve upheld the belief that those who pass the sentence should swing the sword,” Larra said grimly. “The first time Father took us to witness a man being executed, he warned us not to look away… He told us that if we were to take a man’s life, we owed it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. That if we couldn’t bear to do that, then perhaps the man doesn’t deserve to die after all… He said those who hid behind paid executioners quickly forgot what death is.”

“I do not know how to hold a sword, let alone wield one,” Sansa said, her eyes widening slightly.

Larra’s smile was grim. “It needn’t be so literal. We’ve made this decision together. We both have condemned him. But as the Stark in Winterfell, it is you who must pass the sentence.”

Sansa frowned. After a long moment, she wondered aloud, “If I asked it of you, would you swing the sword?”

Larra stared back at her little sister, every inch a stern Northern ruler. An elegant lady; a perpetually troubled leader. She reached up to tenderly pinch Sansa’s chin, murmuring, “What wouldn’t I do for you?” What hadn’t she done, to protect their brothers? What wouldn’t she do, to protect her sister? To do what she could not, last time, and protect their people? Their home, their freedom. “You look uneasy. That’s good. Father was always troubled by it.”

Sansa gazed off into the distance, the same way Brandon did when he went somewhere else. To herself, she murmured, “It was his duty…”

“One of them,” Larra said. “To protect his people from those who would do them harm. It should never be easy. It should always give you troubled dreams.”

“In his progresses…Maester Luwin mentioned your dreams,” Sansa said, turning curious eyes on Larra. “He described them in detail.”

“I haven’t had them since I entered the caves beneath the great weirwood,” Larra admitted, and glad of it. “I think they were the Bloodraven’s way of reaching out…connecting me with Bran until I had brought us both North where we were always meant to be.”

Larra knew what she had to do. A task only she could perform. She was just afraid to do it. To go down there, where Father and Robb and Rickon all waited for her to remind her of her failure.

She leaned in to tenderly kiss Sansa’s forehead, and made her way out of the warmth and light of the hall, where the women sang and the tapestry continued to blossom before her eyes like a strange flower.

They were playing a little game, now. Just a little one, the cyvasse board small - but the dangers significant, if they did not do the thing with caution and sensitivity toward their allies - and their enemy.

The castle felt differently than it had before she and Brandon had shared the news of the Twins. As if the castle could breathe deeply into its lungs for the first time in an age. The Red Wedding was avenged, truly, finally. Almost all those involved in the Red Wedding were dead: The Freys, the Boltons, Tywin Lannister…

Things were changing. The old players were being wiped off the board.

It was interesting to wander the castle that night. They did not empty more barrels of ale or stout or cider; they did not feast in the hall and the courtyard. They did nothing out of the ordinary, except that the few musicians that had found their way this far north brought out their instruments, and anyone with a fine voice raised it to the skies as the snows gentled to nothingness, the clouds dissolving to reveal a flawless velvet sky studded with stars that seemed to glitter knowingly.

The music soared to the diamond-studded skies, and Yaskier sang, and Larra entertained a gaggle of children eager to hear of her adventures beyond the Wall, enthralled as she wove a tale - and had Last Shadow frighten the life out of them, appearing out of nowhere to growl in their ears and lick the backs of their necks.

She laughed, digging her fingers through Shadow’s thick pelt, and watched Yaskier disappearing with a pretty serving-girl - shortly before the horses were saddled, and those Brandon had called upon said their goodbyes, and headed out into the night, guided by a gentle moon. Larra raised her face to it, relishing the luminous silver light.

As children, Father used to say Sansa and Arya were as unlike each other as the sun and the moon - yet to Larra, they had both always radiated light.

How different were they, now, she wondered. Sansa wanted to do everything in her power to make a man’s execution just: Arya had allegedly wiped out a sprawling family, down to the last child, out of vengeance.

Larra still didn’t know what to make of it, Arya’s part in the eradication of House Frey. But she trusted that Brandon had no use for lies and deceptions. It had been Arya. And she had killed innocents.

And it broke Larra’s heart to think what Arya must have endured, to turn her into a cold-hearted killer.

It sat heavy on her heart both what Arya had become, and what Sansa had asked her to do.

No, not that Sansa had asked her: That she had _agreed_.

What wouldn’t she do for her family?


	22. Flowers in the Garden

**Valyrian Steel**

_22_

_Flowers in the Garden_

* * *

“You look positively gleeful.”

“Not at your leaving this island, I assure you,” Jon smiled. “I’m just happy I don’t have to get back in that boat yet.”

“ _Ship_ ,” Ser Davos corrected, his beard twitching, eyes twinkling. “Got to take advantage of the fine weather. Shipbreaker Bay earned its name, after all.”

“They’ll all be there?”

“All of the Stormlords,” Ser Davos sighed, grumbling slightly as he gazed out to sea. The sky was endless white today and the sea calm, pale grey, the water in the bay the clearest it had been in weeks: The day was bright - and _brutally_ cold. There was a good breeze, coming down from the North, bringing with it the taste of ice - it was perfect weather for sailing, according to more experienced mariners than Jon. “Deciding what happens next. They have no leader; they’ll be arguing amongst themselves over who to pledge their swords to - Cersei, or Daenerys… If we get through it without broken bones, shattered teeth and wounded pride, I’ll eat my remaining fingers.”

“Well, it’s important you be there to represent your own interests,” Jon said quietly. “At the very least, you’ll be a voice of reason.”

“I still can’t change your mind?” Ser Davos prompted, and Jon sighed.

“As you said, the Stormlords have no leader,” Jon said. “And it doesn’t look like there’ll be a Baratheon miraculously returning to Storm’s End to unite them, if such a thing was possible after Stannis and Renly.” Ser Davos frowned at him. Jon knew him well, now, and could practically see his mind working. The intensity of his gaze was tempered by a quiet awe, as if he had just realised something very important.

“What is it?” Jon asked.

“What if there was?”

“Was what?”

“A Baratheon to unite the Stormlands,” Ser Davos said, with quiet urgency, and Jon just prevented himself from glancing to the left, where he knew Lord Varys lingered, hands tucked into the fur-trimmed folds of his robes, and who had just straightened almost imperceptibly - but just enough for a seasoned brother of the Night’s Watch to notice it. Varys was listening intently, as he seemed always to be when Jon was around.

“Sansa told me a rumour that King Robert’s bastards had all been butchered by Gold Cloaks in the early days after Father’s execution,” Jon said sombrely, wincing. Lady Catelyn had hated him from the moment she arrived at Winterfell with Robb, only to find Jon and Larra already installed in the nursery. But she had never harmed him, even if her thoughts had rarely been kind toward him. And Jon could never imagine Lady Catelyn vengefully murdering him or Larra, or sending cutthroats after them… “Either Joffrey or Cersei ordered it, she didn’t know which.”

“A few less than tasteful associates laughingly said at the time that the Stag’s Seed had been washed away into the Blackwater,” Ser Davos said grimly. “I remember the Red Woman regretting the waste; King’s blood has _power_ , you see.” He bristled with suppressed rage, and Jon’s mind turned to a young, scarred face - a _beautiful_ child full of true kindness and innocence. “But to Cersei, Robert’s bastards were a threat to her children - because they were _his_ bastards; not hers.”

“They had a more legitimate claim to the Iron Throne than Cersei’s children - or Cersei herself,” Jon said, nodding. One of Lady Catelyn’s greatest lingering concerns had been that Jon may have become a threat to her sons’ inheritance. The tragic irony was not lost on Jon… “Disregarding those who still claim Robert was a usurper, of course.”

“Cersei and Daenerys can squabble over King’s Landing,” Ser Davos said offhandedly. Truth be told, neither of them had much faith in Daenerys Stormborn as being a ruler any better than the ones who had come before her. They needed only exchange a look to confirm each other’s feelings on the matter; they had never needed to discuss their opinions on how Daenerys Targaryen ruled Dragonstone. Or rather, didn’t. Ser Davos frowned thoughtfully at Jon, as if he was seeing someone else. “But Storm’s End…that’s the seat of House Baratheon. A Baratheon should claim it.”

“You wouldn’t bring this up if you thought such a thing could not be done,” Jon said: Ser Davos was nothing if not a practical man.

“There was one…” Ser Davos sighed, shaking his head. “One of Robert’s bastards, born in Flea Bottom; he managed to escape the Gold Cloaks.”

“How?” Jon asked, surprised.

“His master sold him to the Night’s Watch. According to him, he was on his way to the Wall with a wandering crow when they were attacked by Gold Cloaks…” Ser Davos glanced at Jon, who raised an eyebrow in surprise. Wandering crows were so named because they flew down from the Wall and drifted about the Seven Kingdoms, enlisting willing recruits and emptying castle dungeons. “And then captured by the Mountain and his men, during the early days of the War of the Five Kings. His trade saved him; an armourer’s apprentice… Somehow he and a few friends escaped Harrenhall - only to fall in with the Brotherhood without Banners…who then sold him to the Red Woman, for the King’s blood in his veins.”

“She wanted to burn him,” Jon said grimly.

“Among other things.”

“His own nephew… If I didn’t know what fate befell Princess Shireen, I might be shocked that King Stannis would ever have considered it…” Jon sighed, shaking his head. He may not have liked Stannis Baratheon, but Jon had respected him: He had set aside his plans to take the Iron Throne to lead his armies north. He had done his duty, to every man, woman and child in Westeros, though they would never know it.

And that was why it was so difficult to reconcile that the man who had set aside his claim for the crown and the man who had willingly burned his only daughter alive at the stake were one and the same.

Jon sighed, gazing at Ser Davos. “The boy lived?”

“Aye, he lived,” Ser Davos said heavily. “Because I betrayed my King and smuggled the boy off this very island.”

Jon smiled. “You forfeited your life to do what was right… That’s why Stannis named you his Hand.”

“I should have known…the moment he ordered me to Castle Black, I should have realised…”

Jon frowned at his adviser - his friend. “You may not have been able to stop her death, but you saved that boy’s life. Believe me, I know the weight of it,” he said softly, thinking of the Battle for Castle Black, and Hard Home after. The Watch had saved the North from an invasion of wildlings; but they had lost an army of those same wildlings to the Night King. Innocent children, old men, mothers. “Sometimes you can save one…rarely both. Sometimes neither… I didn’t know the Princess well, just that…she was sweet and gentle and _impossibly_ kind…but I do know she’d rather you saved an innocent boy’s life than hers, if it came down to it.”

After a moment, Ser Davos’ beard twitched, and he sniffed roughly. “Aye, she would.” His voice was hoarse when he said, “She was a good girl.” Jon did not pretend not to see the way Ser Davos’ eyes glimmered. Jon knew he had loved the princess as his own.

“Do they know?” Jon asked quietly, meaning the Stormlords.

“Not that I know of.”

“What will you tell them, if it comes to it?”

“The royal family were killed by House Bolton. And if their bannermen hadn’t still been squabbling amongst themselves like spoiled children, they could have avenged them during the Battle of the Bastards,” Ser Davos said. He scoffed, “Never knew Stormlords to value velvet-covered armour and silks and _Rainbow Guards_ over military strength and blood-right. The War of the Five Kings made a mockery of the Stormlords.”

“So you’re going to provoke them,” Jon said, smirking slightly, and Ser Davos’ eyes twinkled. “And what about Robert’s bastard? Will you tell them about him?”

“If I knew where to find him,” Ser Davos said, sensibly. “But we’d have so many pretenders, and we’ve far greater concerns. Besides, it’ll be a lot of hot-headed young men eager to fight and prove their mettle - and old sceptics who know better.”

“Don’t worry… I’m not hoping for much,” Jon said; they had discussed Ser Davos requesting men from the Stormlands to ally with them.

“I don’t like leavin’ you,” Ser Davos said, frowning.

“It’s important you be there,” Jon said fairly.

“I’ll see who’s left. Some with sense, hopefully. Others too tired to carry on, keen to die gloriously in battle…” Ser Davos shook his head. The War of the Five Kings may have gutted the Riverlands, but the War had started as a rift between two brothers who had divided the Stormlands. Most of the fighting men had died at the Battle of the Blackwater: any survivors had been conscripted into service under King Stannis, and had died on the moors of Winterfell. “I’ll do what I can to convince any who might listen…”

“Thank you, Ser Davos,” Jon said sincerely. “I wish you a fair journey.”

“I will return,” Ser Davos assured him. “Until I do, take care of yourself.”

“And you, Ser Davos.”

“Look after yourself with _her_ ,” Ser Davos said pointedly, and Jon nodded.

“I know what she’s about,” Jon said. The Queen was no Sansa: she couldn’t disguise her emotions. She couldn’t disguise her _lust_ \- her desire for Jon, his approval, his respect, his admiration. His presence in her bed, too, he did not doubt: Her gaze was always hungry.

He watched Ser Davos climb into the little dinghy. They rowed out to Jon’s flagship, and Jon sighed. Ser Davos was leaving, but Jon did not feel vulnerable without his presence: just tired. At least with Ser Davos - as with Theon - Jon did not have to be anything but exactly who he was. A grim, tired warrior who wanted nothing more than to go home - even if that meant finally facing down an enemy he had been evading for far too long, and had no real hope of defeating.

The sails unfurled, rippling in the strong breeze that would hurry _Winter_ south. His flagship - _his_ … Robb had commissioned the fleet but never seen a single one of the ships: Lord Manderly had continued building, in secret, as he had done most things. In his own time, for his own reasons. _Winter’s_ direwolf figurehead was monstrous, but like most things in the North, the ship was strong, built to endure, with a focus on the practical rather than the pretty - certainly nothing to the grand and very beautiful ship _Gallant_ that moored in the bay, gleaming like dark gold, its dark-green sails raised.

Movement flickered beside him, though Jon was used to Lord Varys’ near-soundless approach by now.

“Lord Varys,” he said quietly, turning to frown at the man as the brittle sun glowed above them.

“Your Grace,” the Master of Whisperers said cordially, dipping into a semi-formal bow.

“Couldn’t help but notice your interest in my conversation with Ser Davos,” Jon said. Lord Varys was far too…southern, for all he was a foreigner; Jon disliked politics, though he would engage in them when necessary. With Lord Varys, he had found that conversations could get utterly too flowery for his taste, and take far too long to get to the heart of the thing. He’d rather be straightforward about it. “Which part in particular struck your fancy? I can’t imagine it was Stormlords’ gathering - considering it was you who told Ser Davos about it.”

“Indeed, I did share pertinent information with your adviser,” Lord Varys said, unapologetically.

“I do hope it was not your ultimate goal to separate me from my adviser in the hopes I could be swayed to reconsider the status of the North as a free and independent sovereign nation.”

“I’ve been watching you for far too long, Your Grace, to believe Ser Davos has any true bearing on your decision-making. He may advise, but you know your own mind,” Lord Varys said, his tone amiable. “And if he _were_ to convince you of another course of action, I am quite certain it would be because you already questioned the wisdom of such decisions. Besides, while you remain on Dragonstone without your adviser, the council will be without its queen.”

“She’s leaving,” Jon nodded: He’d seen the Dothraki preparing. He’d say it for them; they knew how to mobilise at a moment’s notice. No Westerosi army could ever compete. He frowned to himself, wondering what that implied for the future…if they all lived long enough to have one…

“Taking the hordes to the mainland,” Lord Varys said airily, nodding.

“Is that wise, to unleash them?” Jon asked: Part of his geography lessons with Maester Luwin had covered the migratory Dothraki with their single sacred city, their worship of horse-gods and their utterly brutal way of life, devastating city after city as they ravaged their way across Essos.

“Better them than dragons,” Lord Varys said, and his tone was almost tart.

“She’ll be taking them, too,” Jon pointed out heavily.

“Drogon, yes,” Lord Varys said. “What is a Great Khaleesi without her mount?”

“Most horses can’t breathe fire to melt castles,” Jon replied, holding Lord Varys’ gaze. He looked as sombre as Jon felt about the prospect of Queen Daenerys moving her cavalry to the mainland. Unsullied were one thing; Dothraki were an entirely different sort of beast - one it was next to impossible to control once it had been unleashed. Jon had been around them long enough on Dragonstone to know it, even if he hadn’t studied them as part of his history and military strategy lessons.

“Indeed not,” Lord Varys agreed with a murmur. “And while she is gone, the lot of us shall just have to muddle on.”

“You won’t go with her?”

“No. The Lord Hand and Queen’s trusted adviser and translator will accompany the armies,” Lord Varys said, telling Jon more than anyone had yet let slip about Daenerys’ campaign plans. “With bloodriders ready to kill each other for the honour of protecting their Queen and, indeed, the Lord Hand to guide military strategy, well…it would be laughable to even suggest I join the campaign. I am no soldier.”

“But you are a strategist.”

“I suppose I am,” said Lord Varys thoughtfully.

“Did you help devise the Queen’s strategy, or is she following her own advice?” Jon asked quietly. He knew the Queen had been advised until her councillors were blue in the face: She did not heed their warnings, hence her mobilising her armies to deal with what others had foreseen, and she had ignored in favour of her own petty vengeances, snatching Casterly Rock like a spoiled child who took toys off other children without ever wanting to play with them - just make sure no-one else did.

“In this matter, her first foray onto the mainland, which will surely set the tone for this war, the Queen has deigned to listen to the advice of her Council,” Lord Varys said carefully. “Whether she remembers it, when the time comes, is another matter entirely.”

“Unleashing Dothraki out in open field,” Jon murmured. “It’ll be over and done with before she can think too much on it.”

“That is my thought exactly,” said Lord Varys. “But what comes after the last sword falls to the ground in surrender?”

“If there are any left to drop them, you mean. You worry about her thirst for vengeance,” Jon surmised.

“I do. Innocents were slaughtered…but someone must end the cycle,” Lord Varys sighed, shaking his head subtly. “Her bloodthirstiness…concerns me. I had heard whispers…saw glimmers with my own eyes in Meereen; the Lord Hand and I did our utmost to curb those instincts then…guide the Queen toward a settlement both practical and merciful.”

“She doesn’t like diplomacy.”

“Nor do you.”

“I dislike _politics_. But I know they’re necessary. I’m a soldier, my lord…if I can avoid senseless violence and death, I will,” Jon said grimly and earnestly. Lord Varys nodded.

“I’ve heard many a song sung from the Wall. Their voices are chilled, but quite in awe,” he said almost fondly. “The bastard who became a steward. The steward who became a warrior. The warrior who became a traitor. The traitor who became a commander. The commander who became king.”

“Sounds simpler and far less gritty and gruesome than it truly was.”

“The songs always are,” Lord Varys smiled softly. “Lord Tyrion speaks of your time together at the Wall with high regard.”

“He’s too kind.”

“Usually, unless the wine-skin is out of reach,” Lord Varys quipped, and Jon’s lips twitched at the light shining from Varys’ eyes. He was fond of Lord Tyrion, too.

“My father taught me how to be a good man. Before he left the Wall, Lord Tyrion taught me my first lessons in how to be a good leader,” Jon said honestly. “He’d be flustered to know how much of an influence he had on my life in so short a time.”

“Our friend is not accustomed to genuine praise,” Lord Varys said, and his voice was soft and almost wistful. He smiled at Jon. “And now you pass on the teachings of your father and of Lord Tyrion… The Queen listens to you. I know she appears…hostile, at worst, and ambivalent at best, but you are perhaps the only person on this island - which means the world - whose opinion and approval Daenerys Targaryen desires above almost everything.”

“I’ve no time to teach her how to listen, if she wants to learn to lead,” Jon told Varys simply.

“Quite,” Lord Varys said. “And yet just your presence alone is enough: She emulates your behaviour…she is far more temperate in your presence.”

“I’m not a dragon-tamer,” Jon said, and Varys laughed.

“Perhaps as close to one as we shall ever find,” he chuckled. “The armies will be ready to sail to the mainland in two days’ time. I…humbly ask you to join us at court until the Queen’s departure.”

“You want her to go off to war in a pretty mood.”

“If I thought it may affect the outcome… Any conflict involving either the Dothraki or Drogon will not last long. Then she will face her first test,” Lord Varys said, looking unsettled. “How will she handle her enemies in their defeat? She wants to impress you.”

“She wants to imprison me.”

Lord Varys’ lips twitched, not denying it. “She desires your respect and admiration. If she goes into battle thinking how best to earn your regard…”

“So far I’ve seen nothing worthy of my respect or my admiration, except perhaps the small-folk who toil through all weathers and the Dothraki’s fine horses,” Jon said honestly. “And there must be something very wrong if she’s making decisions on the battlefield contrary to her nature in an attempt to try and win my favour…” He saw the Spider’s wince. “Don’t worry: I’ll keep that opinion to myself, if you do the same.”

Lord Varys sighed deeply, his long fur-trimmed sleeves rippling as he rocked on the balls of his feet. “Everywhere Daenerys Stormborn has gone, she has been wooed, admired, feared, beloved, yielded to, lusted after, adored… Until you. _Northmen_ ,” Lord Varys said, his eyes alight with amusement as his lips twitched. “A very different breed entirely to any other in the world, and I can say that, having mingled with most kinds of people from all over the known world. Stubborn, tireless, resilient, and _just_. And not impressed simply by a pretty face and a self-aggrandising name… You are the first person in years whom she can neither seduce nor intimidate into giving her exactly what she wants. To someone like her, the challenge is as exhilarating as it is infuriating.”

“I have a feeling she’d tell you there are no others like her.”

“Very true.”

“You want me there? And Lord Tyrion? Lady Ellaria? The Greyjoys?”

“Ironically, your presence at court goes a long way toward breaking the ice,” Lord Varys said, and Jon scoffed, shaking his head. “You have felt the tension among the Queen’s councillors.”

“Tension’s an interesting way of putting it,” Jon muttered.

“How would you describe the atmosphere at court?” Lord Varys asked, eyeing Jon shrewdly. He gazed back at the Master of Whisperers.

Fearful,” Jon said. He did not need to elaborate. “You agree. You just wanted to hear me say it aloud.”

“Once, I could explain away to youth and inexperience and a fierce, impatient heart. But when every Council session devolves into convincing Queen Daenerys _not_ to unleash the dragons on the fields and holdfasts of Westeros to claim the Iron Throne all the quicker…”

“You can only advise; ultimately you won’t be able to make decisions for her. She’s not accountable to you. Or anyone else, for that matter - certainly not me,” Jon reminded the eunuch firmly. “You can only give advice; it’s up to her what she does with it.”

“That’s what I used to tell myself about her father… I’m not the one doing it,” Lord Varys murmured, his eyes faraway and haunted. “I found the traitors, but I wasn't the one burning them alive. I was only a purveyor of information. It's what I told myself when I watched them beg for mercy... _I'm not the one doing it._ When the pitch of their screams rose higher... _I'm not the one doing it._ When their hair caught fire and the smell of their burning flesh filled the throne room... _I'm not the one doing it_ … I have a great many regrets in my life, Jon Snow. I have no wish to repeat my past, or for Daenerys to repeat her father’s. I have no wish for you to follow the fate of your uncle and your grandfather - nor your own excellent father. Too many Starks have died already for the sake of House Targaryen.”

“True. But I’m not a Stark,” Jon reminded him. Lord Varys looked so despondent; there was no way to ease the pain of remembered horror - Jon knew all too well. Something flickered in Lord Varys’ face, though, at the sound of Jon’s voice, or perhaps the words, and his eyes turned, for the briefest moment, shrewd. They flickered again, when Jon prompted, “You were there when my grandfather and uncle were killed.”

“I was.”

“Father rarely talked about them.”

“Lord Eddard was very like his father in looks, and indeed in temperament. Calm and grim, unfazed. And Brandon…handsome and fierce…and he died weeping as he watched his father’s eyes melt down his face, and his skin blacken and blister, strangling himself to try and free his father - the first he knew of his father’s presence in King’s Landing since his own arrest…” Lord Varys’ voice was soft, his eyes haunted. “He fought like a trapped direwolf to free himself - free his father…”

“They died for nothing,” Jon said quietly. _Like Father_. And it fell to Jon to preserve the freedom of the North, hard-won and bitterly bought. Lord Varys sighed, then frowned at Jon, his brow creasing, his eyes vibrant with intensity. “What is it?”

“A fragment of song from the distant past…”

Jon didn’t know what that meant; he raised an eyebrow, but shrugged it off. _Winter_ had disappeared over the horizon, and Jon turned away from the quay. Lord Varys followed, somehow managing to look unruffled and unhurried as he kept pace with Jon, who slowed his strides. Lord Varys was quiet, and remained so as they started the long ascent. Jon was used to arduous climbs, but he couldn’t quite get used to Dragonstone, wreathed in strange vapour created by the sea-air mingling with the heat of the volcano that seemed to protect everything with warmth. The same way Winterfell was protected by thermal rivers, Dragonstone’s volcano radiated enough heat to stave off winter’s harshest elements.

And the castle itself looked superbly eerie, braceleted with wreaths of heavy fog strangely warm to walk through, though salty and sulphuric at the same time, with a hint of perfume from the ancient Valyrian plants growing in Aegon’s garden.

Jon and Lord Varys made their way toward the monstrous fortress, taking their time where the vapours had turned the stone walkways slick and precarious.

Jon saw her at the same time Lord Varys did.

A glimmer of shimmering rose-pink against the unbroken white sky. Silk skirts billowing in the wind that had picked up the higher they had climbed. She was bare-armed, wearing nothing but her pretty rose-pink dress of silk and jacquard, and the wind snatched at her hair, tangling the soft brown locks, as she stood in the shivering grass at the cliff’s rocky, speckled edge, winter wildflowers open at her feet.

It was Lady Alynore Tyrell.

“Will she jump?” Lord Varys asked, his voice hushed and grim, his eyes fixed on the girl. Lord Varys looked grim but expectant, even resigned. Jon watched her. She stared out to sea, and did not appear to notice them, or anything else.

“No,” Jon said, from experience with some of his brothers of the Watch. There was only one way out of a lifelong-oath: Flinging oneself from the top of the Wall often seemed like the only way out…until they reached the top of the Wall and saw just how high it was - and how long a fall it would be. Long enough to regret the decision… “If she’d wanted to jump, she would have done it by now.” Jon did not take his eyes off her, just in case, as he asked Lord Varys, “Has there been some change with Lady Olenna?”

“We would have been flocked by little birds if there had,” Lord Varys said softly. “What can she be thinking?”

“She’s thinking that her entire family has been butchered,” Jon said grimly, and Lord Varys winced. Jon sighed, watching the girl. She was perhaps Sansa’s age, just barely. Grief-stricken and overwhelmed, the future of her House and the fate of her family suddenly thrust upon her.

Calmly and quietly, Jon climbed over the side of the walkway, climbing up to the cliff’s edge, his heavy cloak - the one Sansa had made for him, and presented to him the day they left Castle Black - teased by the wind, too heavy to lift. Even he had worn his cloak to see Ser Davos off this morning; that said something about how brutally cold it was - and Lady Alynore stood with her bare arms and a low-cut neckline.

Her grief was horrifying.

Face pale, eyes haunting, a single tear fell as she turned her pale green gaze on him.

More followed, silent, and as painful to witness as a knife to the chest.

“Come away,” he murmured, reaching out, shocked by how _cold_ she was as he reached for her hands and gently gripped her forearms, guiding her away from the cliff’s edge. She swayed, and blinked, dislodging more tears, blinding her - she broke, sobbing, and writhed, twisting away, likely having no idea why she resisted, or who it was she was resisting, but Jon held on, as she struggled and tried to fight, and he pulled her into his body, glad he had worn no gorget as she buried her face in his chest, butting her head against the leather of his brigandine, sobbing, and he released her, only to tug on his cloak and wrap it around them both.

It occurred to him, then…that no-one could had _held_ her in her grief, since discovering her family had been slaughtered. He sighed heavily, and relaxed his hold on her, as she gentled and leaned into him, her sobs quieting to gasps and sniffles, exhausted and overwrought, cold and exhausted. He wrapped his arms around her, and held her for as long as she needed.

Only when she wrapped her arms loosely around his waist did he relinquish his hold - only so he could remove his cloak, and drape it around over her head. He wrapped the folds of it tightly around her: Alynore gazed up at him with damp eyelashes, her cheeks pink and lips shivering from the cold, looking exhausted.

Her lips moved, as if she was trying to speak, and then she whispered - more a moan of grief, of true heartache, “There’s no-one to call me Nora now. No-one who _knows_ me…or _c-cares_ … Everything I was died with them… I don’t know what t-to do. N-no-one taught m-me.”

Jon sighed heavily, staring back into those pale-green eyes, so clear, so gentle and innocent and mournful. “Experience is a brutal teacher.” She closed her eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks, and Jon sighed, tucking her close again. She didn’t want to be told she had the strength to carry on, that she would learn, that everything would be okay: She wanted to be held, and allowed to weep for her dead family, and for the future that had been stolen from her - replaced by one she could never have imagined, and was thoroughly unprepared to embrace.

But she had to.

One day, soon, she would have to.

“Come, let’s get you warmed up by the hearth,” Jon said softly. Lady Alynore leaned against him for a moment, her face entirely drained of vitality. Slowly, half-guiding, half-carrying her, Jon led the way up the pathway. Lord Varys had waited for them: He exchanged one solemn look with Jon, and stepped ahead, setting their pace to a slow but purposeful amble as Lady Alynore sniffled and gradually became more animated, tucking Jon’s heavy, almost suffocatingly-hot cloak around herself. All the way up to the spine-tingling entrance to the fortress, and inside: It always felt cool, walking into Dragonstone - unlike Winterfell, which became as hot as a glasshouse in summer, to Jon’s mind, so used to the brittle cold of the Wall.

But it was no longer silent inside the halls of Dragonstone: The smallfolk were occupying it. And everyone had work to do - Jon, and then the Queen’s Council, had made sure of that.

Most of the Queen’s guests had rooms in the Sea Dragon Tower, including Jon himself: There were fewer bloodriders and Meereenese and far more Ironborn, more Northmen, more indolent-looking Dornishmen in deceptively sensual ochre sandsilks and elaborate longaxes, more knights from the Reach in their velvet-covered armour, etched pauldrons and pikes with long, carved handles, still standing guard outside the doors to the Tyrell suite. Jon rarely saw women from the Reach outside of the Tyrell ladies, and they had all been cloistered away since news of Highgarden - and Lady Olenna’s collapse. Now, a lady’s maid met them in the vestibule of the Tyrell suite, bobbing a dainty curtsy to Jon and gazing anxiously over the state of Lady Alynore, but dared not approach too familiarly.

Alynore was Lady Tyrell, now. Things were different, not just for her: The household that had come to Dragonstone with Lady Olenna had had to adjust itself to the practicalities that among them was the new Lady of Highgarden.

A heavy ebony door carved with scales opened: A continuous scream rent the air, unbelievably loud and so high-pitched only dogs were in danger of being able to hear it.

Jon’s hand went to the hilt of his sword on instinct; he frowned, and strode past the maid, into a pretty drawing-room with a roaring hearth - and an irate septa bellowing and scolding, trying to physically overpower a little girl, who was screaming that piercing shriek and slashing her tiny hands, her face red, her eyes swollen, her cheeks sodden, tiny and overwrought. The other Tyrell cousins were upset by the sight of the septa trying to restrain the youngest of them, and Jon stopped short at the sound of a sharp _slap_.

The little one went silent, shocked, her cheek reddened from being struck.

“ _What is the meaning of this_?” He didn’t shout: He didn’t need to. He was the only man in the chamber, and his deep voice cut through the noise of the Tyrell cousins’ weeping, begging the septa to stop hurting the little one, and the septa’s scolding. At the sound of his voice, the septa stood ramrod straight, seething, swelling with rage, one hand clenched at her side, the other clamped around the little Tyrell’s arm like a vice. As the shock started to wear off, the little girl started wriggling, and wept silently.

 _When children cry aloud they do it for attention; when they cry silently, it’s because they can’t help it_ , murmured Larra in his ear, as Jon took in the septa’s scarlet, fury-filled face, and the tear-streaked, miserable faces of the little Tyrell girls.

There were five of them, not one of them older than thirteen and the youngest just four years old. Their wan faces turned tearfully to Jon as he stood in the doorway, flanked on one side by the lady’s maid, a respectful distance behind, and by Lady Alynore, whose shoulders slumped visibly, a curtain of anguish and exhaustion falling across her face as her little cousins turned to her with entreating expressions.

Jon glared at the septa.

“Septa Veda _hit_ Amna!” one of the younger ones - of middling age, neither the eldest nor the youngest - burst out, puffing up in indignation, and for a heartbeat, Arya stood in the drawing-room in her pretty but serviceable wool dress and perpetually unkempt braids, fiercely righteous. Jon blinked, and the narrow, solemn face and dark eyebrows hovering expressively over intense eyes disappeared, replaced by a gentle beauty. Still dark-haired, like Arya, but her eyes were deep, warm brown and ringed with fine black lashes, her lips small and pretty - already hinting at beauty.

Jon stared down the septa. She had the sense to let go of the child, and lowered her gaze to the fine Qartheen carpet.

The tension in the Queen’s court was nothing compared to the tension simmering in the drawing-room: Jon felt it. And he was reminded of fretful children and uncertainty, dread. He remembered Arya and Sansa squabbling over the prince, over Larra’s new ribbons from Queen Cersei: He remembered Rickon alternately crying and raging - and Larra, still healing, absorbing the role of mother when Lady Catelyn refused to leave Bran’s bedside, abandoning her other children, who were frightened, and anxious, and took it out on each other. Her back still healing from the flogging, and facing down their family’s imminent separation, Larra had somehow found the strength to settle the girls’ squabbles, to warmly and fairly discipline Rickon out of his wrathfulness, gentling him with cuddles and kisses, reaffirming that he was loved, and not abandoned, and support Robb, who knew rule of Winterfell was suddenly to be thrust upon him with Father’s departure, and not break her heart that Jon was leaving her forever.

In those first hours and days after Bran’s fall, and then weeks, Larra had held them all together. Had stopped them turning on each other - or been the balm to mend the wounds created when they did…

 _Let him wear himself out_ , Larra said, in his memory. _Fresh air’s the best thing for him_. Ahead of them, he could see Rickon’s soft blonde hair shining in the sunlight as he and Larra wandered hand-in-hand through the godswood, and their youngest, fraught little brother ran around, throwing stones into the pond by the weirwood, kicking patches of melting snow, fighting at tug-of-war with Shaggydog and a branch that had come down.

His wrath exhausted, Rickon had stumbled back an hour later, leaves in his unruly hair, hands grubby, scuffing the ground with his boot, and shyly and shamefully offered Larra a fistful of flowering heather in apology for hitting her, causing the back of her frock, with its triple-layered panel of linen sewn to protect it, to spot with blood from her still-healing whipping wounds.

Both of them holding his dimpled little hands, they had walked back to the castle, Larra carrying her little posy of flowering heather, sometimes lifting their little brother to swing him between them, laughing softly.

The sudden surge of memory, forgotten until now, caused Jon’s heart to stutter and squeeze painfully.

He turned to the lady’s maid wide-eyed behind him. “Could you fetch the girls’ cloaks?” The maid nodded, dipped courteously, and disappeared in a delicate swish of fine skirts. Emboldened by his presence, and that of their older cousin, the little girls turned to Lady Alynore, beseeching - Jon remembered that look: Sansa and Rickon - and even self-assured Arya and Robb - had looked at Larra that way. With absolute confidence that she knew exactly what to do.

Because, somehow, she always had.

When Lady Catelyn had withdrawn to Bran’s sickbed, Larra had understood better than anyone that Rickon, Arya, Sansa, even Robb, were desperately sore for a mother’s love. It was the first time in their lives that Lady Catelyn had abandoned them. Jon and Larra knew what it meant to go without a mother’s love: Larra had gone out of her way to ensure none of their brothers or sisters had ever felt anything less than loved and cherished.

Jon strode over to the septa, who was rigid, her face bleached of colour in shock and humiliation, but he merely leaned down and scooped up the youngest Tyrell. She was a little dumpling, with dimpled fingers, dove-grey eyes and long hair tangled around her face in bronze waves.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Jon said calmly, speaking to her as her lips quivered and tears welled, and he adjusted her in the crook of his elbow, clamped to his side, “and you can tell me all about it.”

If it wasn’t Larra, it was Jon their younger siblings had always run to - especially Arya, when the unfairness of the world had become too much for her to bear.

“And while we’re all gone, Septa Veda can have a cup of tea and some time to herself,” Jon suggested, glancing at the septa, remembering how hideous his siblings could be at times, and just how _good_ Septa Mordane had always been about them. She had been sharp - but fair, always.

He caught Lady Alynore’s slightly stunned but grateful gaze, as the maid returned, her arms laden with cloaks of varying sizes, each trimmed with velvet and golden-brown fur, and soft suede mittens lined with wool.

“Are we going outside?”

“We all are,” Jon confirmed, as one of the older girls stepped forward, taking a small cloak and draping it over the head of the second-youngest - the one who had spoken up about Septa Veda - who squawked indignantly but was smiling when she resurfaced. The cloaks and mittens were divvied out amongst the girls, the older ones helping fasten elaborate clasps, and Jon tucked the dainty sky-blue cloak around the little girl still cradled in his arm, who was now gazing steadily at him as if uncertain whether she should start crying again or tuck herself against him for a cuddle. Jon glanced at the maid. “I’ll bring them back in an hour or so. Can you see that some soup is sent up for when we return?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the maid smiled softly. It was always strange to be called that: Even stranger, by southerners. There was an innate sense of deference in southerners: Northerners were respectful, because they knew Jon had earned the title they had given him. Southerners…just knew he was a king and treated him how they thought kings expected to be treated. It was odd. Jon preferred the Northern way of doing things: It was more honest. When his bannermen were irritated by his decisions, he knew about it.

“Stay here,” Jon told Lady Alynore quietly. She was gazing at him as if it was the first time seeing him. “Get warm, and rest a while.” She just gazed at him, and nodded softly.

A little while later, Jon led the Tyrell cousins into Aegon’s Garden.

There were five of them - Tyrells. The eldest was Alyssa, twelve years old and already a lady - very much like Sansa, as she had once been, though there was a sensibleness and patience to Lady Alyssa that Sansa, at the same age, had lacked. Next in age came Poppy, who appeared before Jon in her cloak with a smile on her face still streaked with tear-stains, her blue eyes glittering, and she reached for Jon’s free hand, skipping along beside him as they made their way through the castle.

Poppy was a chatterbox, and reminded Jon so much of Arya in mere moments that it physically pained him. Not that he could show her that: He kept the grimace of grief and longing off his face, desperate to return to those days before their family had been divided. After Poppy came Cassia, who meandered outside, her arms cradling a book.

“What’s that, then?” Jon asked her.

“It’s _The Dance of Dragons_ ,” said Cassia, her eyes lighting up. “I’m reading about Baela Targaryen; this is where she bonded with her dragon - and where Moondancer _died_.”

“I know her,” Jon told Cassia, whose eyes shone with anticipation as she gazed delightedly at her book. “During the Hour of the Wolf, when Lord Cregan Stark wanted to execute her rescuers, she threatened him with a sword. He laughed, and the men lived.”

“Don’t _spoil_ the ending!”

“Sorry,” Jon smiled softly.

“How do you know about Baela Targaryen?”

“My sisters. They liked to read about the Dance of Dragons, too. Baela was a favourite of my sister Arya. And Baela’s father the Rogue Prince was a favourite of my twin-sister, Larra. Him, and the Dragon Knight, who came later. Both wielded Queen Visenya’s sword Dark Sister,” Jon said, sighing.

“Ren wants to be like Baela; I think Ren probably already _is_ like Baela,” Cassia mused, and the second-youngest Tyrell hummed as she ran past, her cloak fastened over her shoulder, dropping a mitten, eager to get outside. Jon smirked subtly at Cassia’s succinct observation.

“Aye, I think you’re right,” he agreed, chuckling softly, as Cassia paused to pick up the mitten. In the crook of his arm, the youngest rosebud, Amna, sucked her thumb, still gazing at him. But she’d at least tucked an arm around his shoulder to hold on as he carried her, and she hadn’t started screaming. Whatever had set her off, he didn’t particularly care: He cared only to remove her from the situation that had seemed like it could only escalate.

Aegon’s Garden was a strange place. There were no weirwoods, but everywhere Jon looked, the plants, trees and shrubs were queer shades of silver, pale-gold, blood-red and purplish-black among the greens, and there were hundreds of different hues and textures of _green_. Some plants were glossy spikes; wispy grasses glistened like molten gold; there were speckled purple-black bells; and vibrant scarlet dogwoods, the ground carpeted with blooming chickweed; spires of intricate and deceptively delicate orchids; great spears of decadently velvety, frilly blood-red flowers; black calla-lilies; the vivid scarlet ‘Valyrian Paintbrush’… Jon sighed, and set Amna on her feet, to give a wobbly smile, coaxed to join the older girls by Ren, who was already breathless from running around the many flowerbeds, tempted to climb an ancient tree with silver bark and black foliage like obsidian spears, strangled by a purple creeper with delicate flowers of palest lavender.

Cassia peered curiously at one of the flowerbeds. “Shouldn’t it all be dead?”

“It’s the Dragonmont,” Jon told her, sounding far more knowledgeable than he was about the subject. “The volcano heats the earth - and creates the warm fog. It keeps the winter at bay. These are likely the last of the autumn flowers.”

“Did King Stannis plant the garden?” Cassia asked curiously, as she delicately sniffed at a large and ornamental flower with waxy white petals and a crimson throat. Jon startled, staring at her. Stannis, plant a flower-garden? The thought was so absurd it almost made him laugh.

“I don’t think so,” Jon said, his lips twitching. And even Princess Shireen - his hesitant smile faded - would not have been encouraged to come out here to Aegon’s Garden. He frowned thoughtfully. “But this was Prince Rhaegar’s home, before the Rebellion. And he lived here with his wife and children… The Water Gardens of Dorne are famous.” He didn’t mention Highgarden: he didn’t need to.

“It’s prettier than Highgarden,” Cassia said softly, with a wistful sigh. She squinted up at Jon. “It’s more… _more_. Like it’s exactly as it should be, not pruned and forced to behave.”

“Things have been left to grow as they please,” Jon said. If it had been planted by Prince Rhaegar, the garden was nearly three decades old: It had been left to its own devices, and become established, and because of the microclimate of the volcanic island, and the sheltered garden itself, it had thrived. Aegon’s Garden was spectacular.

And it made Jon’s heart ache, thinking of those who would have adored to be here, to see it.

Here and there, Jon noticed splashes of soft, sunburned ochre - perhaps a nod from Prince Rhaegar to his wife, Elia Martell, taken from the desert-gardens of Dorne and left here on Dragonstone with her babies.

Speaking with Lord Varys earlier…it was easy to forget, because of the personal tragedies that had struck House Stark, that Rickard, Brandon and Lyanna Stark were not the only fatalities of the Rebellion. Prince Rhaegar, who had once lived on Dragonstone, and his wife Elia…their children - little more than babies. Princess Rhaenys had not even been as old as Amna when she was dragged out from under her father’s bed and stabbed half a hundred times…

Jon glanced at Cassia, who dimpled when he offered to carry her book, so she could go exploring among the flowerbeds: He wondered just what atrocities had been committed at Highgarden, whether details would trickle across Westeros to the girls’ ears, whether Lord Varys’ little birds would bring songs of mutilation and rape… Would the Uprooting of Highgarden match the Sack of King’s Landing?

The War of the Five Kings was over: He didn’t know what _this_ war would be called, or whether anyone would be alive to remember it… But if they did survive the Long Night, how would history remember the two Queens as they quarrelled over the ragged, war-torn remains of Westeros in winter?

Laughter drew him from his turbulent thoughts: The girls were playing. They were running around, playing a game of chase: Ren _was_ trying to climb the silver tree. And Jon grimaced and strode forward, but little Amna just pushed herself off the brittle silver-green grass where she had fallen face-first, blinked, startled for a moment, then grinned at the sound of her name being called, and giggled as Alyssa tickled her with a long stem of feathery golden grass she had broken off.

Jon remembered his brothers and sisters, his heart aching just as badly as Lady Olenna’s surely was in her chamber inside the Sea Dragon Tower.

He remembered their _play_. And, for an hour, maybe a little longer, Jon remembered what it was to be an older brother to younger sisters who loved to _play_.

Ren made flower-crowns for them all - including Jon, who taught curious Cassia the common Northern and ‘proper’ Valyrian names for some of the flowers, some of which were incredibly rare, a relic of Old Valyria and brought over before the Doom.

“How do you know about flowers?” Poppy asked, genuine curiosity on her face.

“My sister, Larra, she was…she was fond of flowers,” Jon said heavily, sighing, and Poppy exchanged a glance with Cassia.

“Is she dead?” Poppy asked, not unkindly.

“She is,” Jon confirmed, and the two girls exchanged a look.

“Our families are dead, too. That’s why Grandmamma’s heart broke,” Poppy sighed softly, and drifted off to root around under the plants for slugs and snails to torment Alyssa with.

Cassia forgot about her book, happy to chat with Jon as they explored the flowerbeds, and Jon suggested Cassia seek out the maester to ask for books on botany. Alyssa, the eldest, gentlest and steadiest of the five girls, picked armfuls of flowers which Jon had to help trim with his knife, and carried back to the Tyrell suites for her, so she could arrange them in jugs for _Grandmamma’s_ delight, and so the girls could try and paint them - or embroider them, if the blooms lasted. And Amna tripped him up three times, giggling as she wound around his feet like an affectionate kitten, reaching up her little arms, the silent but utterly familiar signal of a little sibling begging to be lifted up and cuddled, as she started to yawn, and the girls’ smiles and pink cheeks and bright eyes signalled that Larra’s medicine was just as effective on dainty little southern ladies as wrathful Northern wolf-boys.

They returned to the Tyrell suite, laughing and happy, relaxed and eager for supper. It wasn’t that Jon was invited to stay for a bowl of soup; it was that he wasn’t actually allowed to _leave_. The girls had effectively taken him captive with their smiles and eagerness to enjoy their new friend. Forget that he was a king; he had taken them out to the garden and encouraged them to _play_.

He was surprised when Lady Alynore reappeared, dressed far more warmly, looking as calm and serene as she always had, and joined them at the dining-table. She gave Jon a soft look that was at once graceful and embarrassed, likely thinking back to the state in which Jon had found her. But her smile became indulgent as she listened to the girls telling her all about their playtime in Rhaegar’s Garden, as Cassia had renamed it: They were eager to show her every single flower they had picked for their painting and embroidery lesson, but were stopped by the arrival of their luncheon.

Delicate porcelain dishes had steam drifting from them as each was set in place by a liveried footman in front of the girls, a dozen or so tiny parcels of dough encasing a smooth filling, folded intricately, steaming in each shallow dish: A rich, clear broth was ladled over them, and Ren jigged with anticipation as the glazed tureen came round to her, licking her lips. It was a simple dish, despite being served with such ceremony, the flavours wonderful - the chicken broth, and the creamy four-cheese filling of the tiny parcels. For a moment, there was quiet, and contentedness. Jon watched Lady Alynore’s gentle gaze as she glanced from each of her cousins in turn, their pink cheeks and happy chatter, _smiling_.

Jon chose to make his goodbyes after the girls had been shuffled off by maids to bathe and dress for bed. “They always change into their nightclothes before their final lesson of the day; embroidery and singing. It’s so much cosier,” Lady Alynore told Jon, her smile soft and sad. “Grandmother started the tradition… Thank you for today. It’s meant the world to them.”

“It…reminded me…of when my family was whole,” Jon told her, and her eyes widened subtly. She nodded, lowering her gaze: hers was not the only family to suffer at the hands of Lannisters. Jon had just had longer to live with it.

Taking the Tyrells to the garden had eaten up several hours of Jon’s time; he found he didn’t mind it. It was a welcome reprieve from the arduous daily routine he forced himself through. At dawn he sparred with weapons; and usually he spent a few hours in the mines, allowing some of the miners to take a welcome break; and after breaking his fast, he dealt with any ravens that were now hand-delivered to him by Maester Mallor, and any other paperwork that accumulated. How he amassed _paperwork_ when this was not his castle, Jon did not understand - until he had gone through the first scrolls and realised that his men were inventorying the obsidian they managed to mine and crate up, ready for shipping. Maester Mallor had been helpful in providing some basic sums to work out the quantity of weapons that could potentially be forged from what they had already mined - how many men they could arm against the Night King’s army.

After looking at the figures, it helped Jon to go into the mine and hit things with a pick-axe, until even his arms, so used to wielding Long Claw, started to ache.

Thinking of Lord Varys’ request, Jon grumbled, and staggered to Dragonstone’s baths. Some were sulphuric, which soothed his aching body; some were cold plunge baths, and others likely had a spring directly from the bowels of Dragonmont, the water bubbled so hot. He immersed himself in the hot water, washing the sweat from his hair, and grumbled that he should probably crop his hair short again - ever since Lady Melisandra had shorn him, he had come to realise just how long and distracting he had allowed his hair to grow out. A male Meereenese attendant bowed courteously when Jon caught his eye, and he came forward; cropped Jon’s hair and beard just a little shorter, neatening him up.

 _Getting pretty for the Queen_ , he thought, reminded only too vividly of being sheared and shaved before the King’s arrival at Winterfell. He felt the same sense of queer dread at the idea of attending court tonight: For the sake of potential allies in the Queen’s Council, if not the Queen, Jon would suffer it…and try to hold his tongue. Little annoyed him more than the Queen’s attitude. He was scowling at the prospect of attending court and having to pretend to enjoy the Queen’s entertainers - _gymnasts_ and musicians who made unnerving, alien music, dancers and performing monkeys - as he made his way through the halls, back to the suite of rooms set aside for the Stark host, in a fresh linen shirt and clean breeches, overly hot from the sultry moisture of the baths, and feeling entirely too clean and vulnerable because of it.

“Your Grace,” one of his men stood to attention, his eyes flitting to Jon’s face before focusing on the wall directly opposite him. “You’ve a visitor waiting within.”

Jon groaned, rubbing his face with his hand, exhausted.

 _Please don’t let it be her_ , he thought. He wasn’t in the mood to be cornered by the Queen - not when he’d made up his mind to be civil for the sake of her courtiers. She had not yet sought him out, but he wasn’t stupid: She wanted to conquer Westeros, yes - but she wanted to conquer _him_.

And for all her beauty, and her terrifying dragons, Jon had little to no respect for her.

He did wonder what it might mean - what it might come to - that the Queen desired him.

The Queen was no fool, though: He could not just pretend to fall helplessly in love with her, besotted and amenable to her every whim and desire. She’d see through it: He had to play a very careful, very cautious - very patient game. As long as she was still flirting on that precarious line between lust and wrath, Jon could do as he liked, could challenge her - and withstand every attempt to force him to submit to her without repercussions.

And nor was Jon a fool to believe that her desire to have him as her lover could protect him for much longer. She had come to Westeros to reclaim the Iron Throne - and that meant conquering all seven of the kingdoms. Jon was a diversion; and he stood in the way of her ultimate goal, no matter what she said about freedom and shattering wheels.

It wasn’t the Queen, to Jon’s relief.

To his surprise, it was Lady Alynore.

She sat on the elegant dragon-shaped chaise in front of the hearth, the firelight lovingly caressing her profile as she started to rise from the chaise.

And Jon drew to a stop, staring. Because she…was _beautiful_. And something had altered in her, in the last few hours since Jon had seen her, Jon could _see_ it. It had little to do with how shiny and soft her hair looked in the firelight, tumbling in waves over her shoulders in a pretty style with soft twists and a delicate bun, or even how understatedly sensual and elegant her gown was, billowing skirts of chiffon so pale a pink they were almost white, pearlescent in the firelight, with sleeves that billowed from shoulder to wrist and trailed on the floor, the shoulders exquisitely embroidered with pale-pink and delicate rose-gold, the entire bodice - loose, with no corseting, Jon couldn’t help but notice, and with a deep neckline that showed the mouth-watering swells of her little breasts - shimmering with the same intricate embroidery of open, evocative roses in palest-pink and rose-gold.

It wasn’t that the firelight made love to her impossibly soft skin, caressing the curves of her breasts. It wasn’t that she looked exquisite and untouchable, with her shimmering hair threaded with delicate white chickweed flowers instead of jewels.

It was that she seemed to radiate a tranquil strength.

There was a softness to her, still, a calmness - but the graceful resilience was utterly captivating.

She looked…absolutely delectable, and that wasn’t a word grim soldier Jon Snow had much call to use.

Beside her on the chaise, a cloak had been tucked into neat, heavy folds. Jon’s cloak. The one Sansa had made for him.

And he understood in that moment why he appreciated Lady Alynore so much more than he ever would Queen Daenerys: Lady Alynore reminded him of _Sansa_. The impossible elegance, the daintiness and seemingly infinite patience…the prettiness concealing a stern bite of strength and steel. And far cleverer than appearances suggested. Clever - with the wisdom to observe, and keep her own council, rather than blurt out the first thing that popped into her head, or let herself be swept up by emotion.

“Lady Alynore,” he said softly, not hiding his surprise. The door closed stoutly behind him, and he was aware of the crackle of the flames, the soft pattering of a gentle rain, and Lady Alynore’s chest rising and falling quickly - betraying her nerves, even as she stood so serenely.

“I…thought to return your cloak,” Lady Alynore said, glancing down at it, folded on the chaise. “The stitching is very fine.”

“My sister Sansa sewed it for me, when I left Castle Black,” Jon said quietly, not sure why he was telling her that. He watched the young lady, who seemed to be working herself up to something. He frowned gently. “You have not been waiting long?”

“I - _Yes_ , but…I’m quite glad of the reprieve. My cousins are wonderful…but they do consume all my attention,” Lady Alynore said, with a soft wince of guilt. “I… I also wanted to ask you something, before I go to court. It…isn’t something I desire anyone else to learn of.”

“Oh?”

“When you told us about Highgarden…you said that if there was anything you could do for us, we had only to ask,” Lady Alynore said, and somehow, though she hadn’t moved, she stood before Jon, her eyes impossibly green, her gaze shy.

“I did,” Jon confirmed with a murmur.

Lady Alynore took a breath, and swallowed. “What I wish to ask is…is hard for me…and I ask that you not…not give your answer immediately. Because I would like you to think…about all of the implications… And please, do not _laugh_.”

“I promise,” Jon said solemnly, and Lady Alynore nodded, almost to herself - as if she was talking herself into asking whatever it was. He was curious, more than wary. Lady Alynore was such a serene, perceptive person, and he had noticed that from his earliest days at Dragonstone.

“Highgarden has been sacked; the Reach is in disarray because of our bannermen’s betrayal. And I am the future of my House,” Lady Alynore said, faint lines creasing at the corners of her eyes that hadn’t been there weeks ago, as she winced. “If House Tyrell can reclaim Highgarden…the lords of the Reach will be circling for the blood of my maidenhead…” Jon blinked, caught himself from gaping at her bluntness. “They will take my family’s home, our lands and our wealth as their own. They will erase the name of Tyrell. And I have no men in my family to protect me from the kinds of abuses young wives too often endure when they are friendless and powerless.” She raised her pale-green eyes to Jon’s stormy dark-grey ones. “I’m not like your sister. I have no-one to fight for me. For _us_. And the bannermen of the Reach will fight over the chance to breed on me, as the key to the Reach. My children will become the true power in the Reach; the lords of the Reach will fight for the right to father them.”

Jon frowned, completely thrown off. “What is it you would ask of me, Lady Alynore?”

Lady Alynore blushed hotly, but raised her eyes to his face, even as she gasped, “A child.” Her hands shook, and she flushed, embarrassed - humiliated, Jon realised, not just uncomfortable; she was absolutely humiliated standing here, asking him to… “I would ask you to father a child.”

He stared. Lady Alynore blushed.

She licked her lips delicately, rubbing her arms, obviously flustered.

“When we return to the Reach, I would return with a child, my heir… The only way to secure the future of my House without yielding it to one of our traitorous bannermen…is to return heavy with a child. _My_ child - a Tyrell,” Lady Alynore said, still pink-cheeked, embarrassed, but determined to hold Jon’s gaze. “As a mother, I can secure the future of my House without surrendering anything.”

Jon bit his tongue. It had cost her to come and ask him this, he understood. A lady, asking him…to _stud_ her.

“As a widow, and mother to an infant, I would be within my rights to refuse marriage - for decades, if I so chose,” Lady Alynore said, clearing her throat delicately. “It…it would provide me with _time_ , to rebuild the Reach…”

“You wish me to father a bastard on you?” Jon clarified, his voice faint, still stunned.

Lady Alynore blushed again. “No…no, not a bastard. The child’s father would be Willas Tyrell…Lord of the Reach, after Lord Mace Tyrell’s death in the Sept of Baelor,” Lady Alynore said. 

“Your cousin,” Jon said quietly, and Lady Alynore nodded sadly. Jon heard her tiny sigh, saw the way her shoulders fell slightly. “But he wasn’t your husband, was he?”

Lady Alynore’s eyes shimmered as she glanced up, and Jon saw just how difficult it was for her to come to him, to ask him this. How much she had truly had to take on, and work through, and set aside to do what was necessary to protect the future of her family. He saw the _grief_ … “No. But there’s no-one now to confirm or deny that our marriage took place…especially if it was in private, while our family was in mourning… My grandmother had decided that Willas and I would marry when we returned to Dragonstone… The intent never became a reality, but…the idea provides opportunity.”

Jon frowned at her, finding her request bizarre and terribly sad at the same time.

“My family has been slaughtered…our bannermen have betrayed us,” Lady Alynore said, her grief tangible as she gazed up at Jon, her eyes shimmering. She gasped softly, tearful, her voice choked as she said, “There’s no-one. I have to do it alone…and this is the only way I could think _how_ … The only way I _can_ … I will not reward oath-breakers with anything but their lives.” Her words became stronger, almost fierce; she drew herself up, elegant and resilient, and Jon would be lying if he said he was not, in that moment, in awe of Lady Tyrell.

Jon stared at her. His bannermen had called for House Karstark and House Umber to be wiped from the pages of history, their castles and holdfasts torn down, their children put to the sword: Jon had rewarded those men with death on the battlefield - and life for their families, in spite of their betrayal.

Did he respect Lady Alynore for her quiet determination, even as he was stunned by her request?

She cleared her throat delicately, glancing up into his eyes, bashful but softly defiant. “Please do not give me your answer tonight. I know…what it may mean to you, my asking you. You are a man of honour, and it goes against your nature to even consider such a thing. Know that I have thought long and hard about this, and do not make this request of you lightly.”

She being Lady Tyrell and Jon the King in the North, she dipped Jon a pretty curtsy and left Jon stunned, listening to the whisper of her skirts against the carpeted stone floor, the sound of the door opening and closing, and the silence broken by crackle of flames, the log spitting embers, and the pattering of rain.

“ _Seven hells!_ ” he blurted to himself finally, gaping.

War, politics, Jon was fully prepared to do what he had to when it came to battles and court intrigue.

Since arriving at Dragonstone, Lady Alynore’s request was the first thing to unnerve him.

What in seven hells was he supposed to do? He thought of Ser Davos, of Sansa…of _Sansa_ , who had endured everything Lady Alynore dreaded.

Would Jon do what he could to stop such atrocities being committed against the delicate, serene, strong Lady Alynore?

Could he…father a bastard?

 _It would be Lord Willas Tyrell’s child_ , he thought, frowning, remembering Lady Alynore’s words. _Not a bastard; heir to the Reach_. But still Jon’s bastard child.

He didn’t even want to consider the political implications, of the King in the North impregnating the young Lady of the Reach with a bastard - when she was so very young, and suffering such acute grief.

He remembered her quiet resolve as she had gazed up at him. She was no wilting flower, docile and submissive, wringing her hands - she had a steady strength and gentle charisma that was entrancing, and Jon couldn’t deny…he found her very attractive, for all those qualities. So like Sansa, without the sharp bite of a direwolf’s fangs; so like Sansa…before _Ramsey_ , Jon imagined. Quiet, resolute and enduring - surviving the impossible through charm, political savviness and shrewd skills of observation and an unfailing intuition.

Jon drifted to the Queen’s court an hour later, still stunned.

Queen Daenerys looked especially resplendent, all in black, something gauzy, diaphanous and glittering. The sheer black fabric showed tempting glimpses of her nipples, her navel and the tempting shadow at the apex of her thighs. Her hair had been brushed until it gleamed like crushed pearls in the candlelight, twisted and braided away from her face, cascading down her back as she reclined on her favourite chaise mounded with down pillows, luxurious silver furs and soft Qartheen shawls.

Jon couldn’t focus on anything but the shit-storm stirred up inside his own mind. He was focused, not on the Dragon Queen, but on Lady Alynore, in her more modest but utterly sensual gown as she played cyvasse with Nymeria Sand - or rather, he was distracted by Lady Alynore’s request.

He was courteous as he had been taught by strenuous lessons with Septa Mordane on _etiquette_ , letting his gut instincts guide him through fifty tiny courses, fine Essosi wines and entertainments after every tenth course.

Situated beside Lord Tyrion, Jon found himself asking the Hand of the Queen to confirm that he was, indeed, venturing out with the Queen’s armies.

“Indeed, I am,” Lord Tyrion sighed, eyeing the sinuous wine-decanter in front of him with a satisfied smile. On his other side sat his companion Tisseia, who always had a sweet, dimpling smile for Jon, cheerful and sensible as ever - her dark eyes flitted to the Queen, ever watchful, deeply protective of Lord Tyrion.

Jon muttered, “And if you happen to meet your brother on the battlefield?”

“He saved my life, more times than even I know,” Tyrion told Jon, taking a healthy gulp from his wine-glass. Lord Tryion’s shrewd eyes flitted to Daenerys. “I will do what I must to ensure his life. Mayhap the Queen could be convinced to exile her defeated enemies to the Wall and join your brothers.”

“My brothers at Winterfell? Sansa’s last raven told me the Watch has retreated to Winterfell to join with our forces there,” Jon told Lord Tyrion. “She’d send her enemies north to another kingdom she considers to be an aggressor against her claim to the Iron Throne?”

Throughout the interminable meal, which seemed far too much like a celebration of anticipated victory than a farewell, Jon sat grim and thoughtful, unless coaxed into conversation by one of the other ladies of the court. And every now and then, the firelight flickered and caught on Lady Alynore’s palest-pink gown…she was radiant, by all appearances recovered from her embarrassment in Jon’s chamber, charming but quiet and gentle as ever.

Perhaps Daenerys had grown impatient at being ignored: Perhaps she had noticed that Jon’s gaze kept returning to Lady Alynore. Either way, she was peeved. And, to snare Jon’s attention, she provoked an argument.

In the drawing-room, lounging on her favourite chaise, with a glass of clear sparkling wine in her hand and a Meereenese lute-player playing to her, Queen Daenerys spoke up. And when she spoke, the court tended to go silent to listen: She _expected_ to be listened to.

“Since my earliest memories, I have known one thing: The fight to reclaim the Iron Throne. It is mine by blood-right, and I will not be diverted by clever words from men who are so _small_ they cannot conceive of a world I desire to build,” the Queen said, and the comment was intended as a slap in the face, not just to those _small_ men she had come across on her journey to becoming the woman she was, but to her Hand, who was trying his utmost to curb her worst, most volatile instincts. “My Council believes I should use patience and tactic in this war, and outmanoeuvre Cersei, rather than unleash my armies and my dragons. Thus far I have followed their advice. And they have proven only that their combined strategic brilliance amounts to defeated allies. I am losing this war before it has begun.”

She was looking steadily at Jon, though her accusations caused the court to bristle.

Jon sighed heavily. “Cersei drew first blood, is all,” he said, shrugging. “Did you expect your invasion to be a bloodless surrender? People unfurling secret banners, raising toasts to your triumphant return?”

He scolded himself for his flippant tone, taunting her. The Queen looked… _startled_ , staring at Jon. Her lips parted, her eyes glowing purple in the candlelight, and for a moment, she looked horrified - and faraway, lost in memory.

Strangely, for the Queen, she relented, just enough to quietly ask Jon, “What do you think I should do?”

He was too tired for this. Too consumed by thoughts of obsidian, and of pale-green eyes shimmering with tears, and an absurd, tempting request. He rubbed his face, showing just how exhausted he felt; it was far too late in the evening, the Queen’s dinners always extending late into the Hour of the Wolf.

“I think that you helped make something impossible happen when those dragons were hatched. They were born into the world again for a reason… Personally, I don’t believe they were reborn into the world for something as trifling as a human war for a throne…” Jon said, honestly. He sighed, glancing around at the members of Queen Daenerys’ court - the Essosi who had come halfway across the world with her. “Maybe their impossible birth helps the people who follow you believe that you can make more impossibilities become real… You say you want to break the wheel, to destroy those who would oppose people without mercy… As long as you do as you please to get what you want - to sit on the Iron Throne your family built, which created the wheel you say you want to destroy… If you use those dragons to melt castles and burn cities, you’re no different, no better than Cersei or anyone else who came before you. Just more of the same.”

“And this is why you refuse to kneel,” Queen Daenerys prompted, her voice like iron.

“I’ve seen nothing here on Dragonstone to convince me why I should, Your Grace.”

The Queen’s expression turned cold, her posture brittle even as she remained reclined on her chaise. “You came here for your people. Isn’t their survival more important than your pride?”

“Fuck my pride,” Jon bit out, scowling, and he had to bite down on a smile as he thought of a grim ice-bitten cell, a man he respected in shackles, eyes wide at the prospect of being burned alive for refusing to kneel. He addressed Daenerys, _finally_ understanding Mance’s words. “My pride’s the last reason why I will never yield the North. If you can’t understand why I won’t give up the safety and survival of my people to a foreign invader who would enlist them to a cause not their own…there’s no point me wasting my breath trying to explain.”

He sighed heavily, climbing out of his seat. Annoyed by the Queen’s arrogance, bewildered by Lady Alynore’s request, exhausted, Jon nodded courteously to the court. He finally turned to Daenerys, telling her grimly, “I wish you good fortune, Your Grace, in the wars to come.”


	23. Plucking Feathers

**Valyrian Steel**

_23_

_Plucking Feathers_

* * *

Meera appeared.

Unlike Larra, she had not shed her furs - she hadn’t had her sister strip them from her and turn the furs over to be burned, the obsidian ring-mail vest turned into… _something_.

Pale-faced, Meera appeared in the courtyard, looking determined but upset. Larra frowned, lowering her hunting-knife - which she had been giving instruction on using, to a group of boys and girls determined to be legendary warriors like Lord Cregan and the Dragon Knight and Lady Brienne - to watch her approach.

She had been waiting for this for weeks. And she had been hoping it would not happen.

They had faced the Night King’s soldiers together for years. Their journey together had made them sisters. And Larra knew her sister well. They could try and coax Meera to stay; but Winterfell was not her home. She still had family in the Neck, her father… They had sent ravens on their return to Winterfell, but the storms may have taken the birds, or else they could not find the floating crannog-castle, Greywater Watch. Jojen had possessed the greensight, but Lord Howland did not: he would not know that his daughter still lived.

And Meera wanted to go home. She wanted to go home to her family.

“It’s time,” Larra said softly, and Meera paused, then nodded. Larra searched her face, which was pinched. Meera gusted out a breath, and looked stricken with guilt for a heartbeat.

“I don’t want to leave you -“

“You’re the last person who owes explanations, Meera,” Larra said softly. “You want to go home to your father. How could we ever deny you anything? Have you told Bran?”

Meera paused, and her gaze flitted to the entrance to the godswood, the heavy door ajar, soldiers guarding the walkway. Larra didn’t have to see the weirwood to know Brandon sat beneath it in his clever wheeled chair. Meera had come from there; Larra remembered the hurt look on her face as she had entered the courtyard.

“Meera?”

“I… He knew,” Meera said softly. “I - He… Jojen and Summer and Hodor all died…died for him and - “

Larra sighed heavily, frowning. Meera didn’t have to finish her sentence; Larra knew. _Bran_ was not there: Brandon sat in his chair beneath the weirwood. The winged-wolf. The Three-Eyed Raven.

“He was not grateful.”

“I don’t expect anything,” Meera stammered, looking flushed and hot and upset. “All those years together… I just thought he would… I don’t know… I didn’t know whether I should tell you, perhaps you felt the same way.”

Larra pressed her lips together, frowning - annoyed and a little ashamed of her brother’s behaviour.

“I couldn’t bear it if you had just left,” Larra said softly. Bran had disappeared without warning, replaced by Brandon the Broken. For Meera to vanish…

Meera gave her a weak smile. “We had our adventures, didn’t we, you and I?”

“There, and back again,” Larra said softly, with a sad smile, an ember twinkling in the back of her mind, the spark of an idea, of a memory, Maester Luwin talking about titles for the stories she wrote for her siblings. “It sounds like the beginning of one of Old Nan’s fairy-tales.”

“Perhaps you could write it all down,” Meera said quietly, and Larra chuckled softly, shaking her head at the idea.

“I am sorry that Brandon could not give you what you deserve,” Larra said sombrely.

“I don’t know what to say to you. How…how do we possibly say goodbye? When I know what I am leaving you to,” Meera stammered softly, staring at Larra, whose chest ached. For years, they had been fighting side by side, and often back-to-back, to protect their brothers, had become as close as sisters, with a strange, unbreakable bond far stronger than blood…

Larra stared at Meera, with her wan face and tired, shrewd eyes.

After spending years together…how were they supposed to adjust to…to _separation_? To not having each other to fight back-to-back with, to bolster each other, to calm each other when the night-terrors were too much and make each other smile with memories of better times.

“Perhaps we don’t,” Larra said softly. “How about…one of us rides to the gate…and doesn’t turn back. Even if our heart screams out for just one more look, even if it goes against everything that we are to turn our backs and not know we’re safe… But I’ll know that you not looking back means…that I will love you, always. And it’s time for you to go home.”

Warm tears pooled in her eyes; Meera sniffed, and nodded, and they embraced like the sisters they were, and for a moment neither of them could let go.

And then they did.

And Meera turned, and walked away. She climbed onto her horse, and rode to the gate.

She did not look back.

And Larra stared after her, long after Meera had disappeared from her sight.

A spear-wife took over her instructions: Larra wiped her eyes, frowned, and made her way into the godswood.

There he was. Sat in the wheeled chair beneath the weirwood. The pond was frozen now, a good foot of flawless ice concealed by fresh snow. The only evidence of movement in the godswood were the tracks made by Brandon’s wheeled chair, to and fro, deep grooves compacting the snow from repeated journeys to the weirwood. Sentinels stood guard at the courtyard entrance to the godswood, and another stood with Brandon in his sight just in case.

Larra strode through the snow, frowning as she approached her brother. His eyes were not the milky-white she was so familiar with now: They were small and dark but still faraway, even as she reached out to grab the arms of Brandon’s wheeled chair to turn him sharply away from the weirwood.

Upset by Meera’s departure, knowing it was the last time they would ever see each other, Larra was even more annoyed by Meera’s poor treatment by Brandon, after all they had endured together. She scowled down at the stranger who looked so like her little brother as he raised his bland face to hers, utterly disinterested as she wheeled him around and bent over to meet his eye.

“Now, you listen to me, little brother,” she growled softly, warning, her fury building, ferocious and chilling. Because Meera’s mistreatment was the last straw. “You’re not so _powerful_ now that I’ll tolerate you being foul to those who’ve earned far better from you. The Bran I know would be _ashamed_ to treat his friends so poorly. Is he still there? Or is Bran lost? Because we need _Bran_. Not Brandon the Broken, some gormless stranger staring into the hearth or the heart-tree, useless and blind to the very real danger bearing down upon us. _Bran_. Who cared so fiercely about others. Our bright, impish little brother who understood far too much and laughed like a squirrel and would be _horrified_ that he sits back and _watches_ while his family and his people are under threat… We need _Bran_ to help us in this fight. You’re no good to us if you don’t care…and Bran always _cared_. Even when he was foul, he cared. Is he gone forever, like Robb and Rickon? Because if there is even a _whisper_ of my little brother still in there, he had better start fighting like a starving direwolf for us - as I did for him!”

“Larra,” said a soft, stern voice, and she realised how angry she was as she stepped back, her chest heaving. Sansa strode over to them, looking concerned, elegant as ever in her heavy gown, trapped inside her leather belts, fur-trimmed gloves and cloak, her hair vibrant as the weirwood. Sansa sighed, glancing at Larra. “Meera’s left.”

“Yes. And our brother couldn’t bother himself to give her the goodbye she’s earned,” Larra said, glaring down at Brandon. She frowned, then her eyes widened, her jaw dropping. Her voice was sharp as the blade itself as she blurted, “ _Where did you get that_?!”

A dagger. Eerily exquisite, vicious and spine-tingling to look at - intricately beautiful and lethal. A dragon-bone hilt inlaid with obsidian, gilded steel and a fat ruby, with a wicked, curved blade of Valyrian steel.

The blade that had been intended to slit Bran’s throat so many years ago.

It had cut Lady Catelyn’s fingers to the bone as she fought off the cutthroat, slain by Summer.

That dagger had taken Lady Catelyn to King’s Landing, to enquire after its owner as proof the Lannisters had conspired to kill Bran, somehow linked to the alleged murder the former Hand of the King, Jon Arryn. Lady Catelyn meeting Lord Tyrion Lannister on the King’s Road back to Winterfell had triggered the War of the Five Kings. It all came down to that dagger.

Larra stared, raising wide eyes to meet Sansa’s, as she glided over to peer into Brandon’s lap, where the dagger rested.

“Your mother took that to King’s Landing,” Larra said quietly, filled with dread.

Sansa blinked, understanding blossoming on her face. “The catspaw. After your fall, the cutthroat who attacked you in your bed… This was his dagger?”

“It’s far too fine for a common cutthroat,” Larra said quietly, frowning. “Lady Catelyn suspected one of the Lannisters.”

“It was Joffrey,” Brandon murmured disinterestedly, his eyes following the edges of the blade as his gloved fingertip stroked the steel. “He hoped to impress the man he believed was his father…”

“ _Joffrey_?” Larra blurted, but Sansa did not look surprised.

“He had overheard Robert saying that the life of a cripple was no life at all…that it would be a kindness for the broken boy to die before ever he could wake…” Brandon sighed. “Joffrey took the blade from the royal armoury, gave it to the cutthroat with a bag of silver stags… Littlefinger gave it to me.”

“ _Littlefinger_ gave it to you?”

“He is not a generous man; he wouldn’t give you anything if he didn’t think he was getting something in return,” Sansa warned, and Larra ignored the twitch of her fingers to wrap around the hilt of Dark Sister and run it through Lord Petyr Baelish. There was no-one in the North more dangerous to their family than him.

“It matters not why he offered it… It is Valyrian steel,” Brandon said softly, sheathing the blade. He offered it to Larra. “A relic of your family.”

“ _You’re_ my family.”

“Aegon I Targaryen commissioned it as a bride-gift for his favourite sister…his favourite wife. Aegon told her to give a sweet kiss of steel to anyone who ever tried to harm her. Rhaenys nicknamed it Sweet Sister… Dark and Sweet are reunited at long last,” Brandon said, his eyes twinkling as they rested briefly on Dark Sister, belted around Larra’s narrow waist. Larra flitted a glance at Sansa. Brandon raised his eyes to her face. “You know the truth…”

Sansa sighed heavily. “About Jon and Larra? Yes.”

“I am glad Larra told you,” Brandon murmured. He raised his fathomless dark eyes from Sansa to Larra. “While I fight my way back, you must trust your own instincts, embrace all you have learned…prepare… We must be ready… It will soon be time, Larra.”

“What does he mean?” Sansa murmured, as Larra frowned at Brandon. He did not mean the Wall, she knew it in her gut… He referenced what Larra had survived the True North to do - what she had _learned_ , the skills taught her by the Children…why she had been called beneath the weirwood, though she had not known until she left it that her training and time with the Children had been just as crucial as Bran’s with Lord Bloodraven.

But she couldn’t. Not yet. She could not go down there, where Father and Robb and Rickon…where her mother waited for her.

Since her return, Larra could not bear to enter the crypt.

And yet, she knew she must.

Not today.

“Where are you going?” Sansa called.

“To _pluck_ a mockingbird!”

Littlefinger wasn’t difficult to find: He was always skulking about wherever Sansa happened to be. Never overtly spying, but close enough to fall into place at the exact moment he saw her vulnerable - when she was flustered, or deep in thought. Anything to startle her into confiding in him, so he could worm his way in, twist Sansa around until she could not tell up from down.

He was dangerous because he was subtle. He kept to the shadows, seemingly benign and endlessly courteous in public, conniving and worm-tongued in private, whispering titbits and veiled threats, poisoning wherever he went.

Lord Petyr Baelish was more a venomous snake than a mockingbird.

She confronted him in the courtyard, talking herself up to being seen to be angry - she was already heightened from Meera’s departure and her shame and annoyance over Brandon’s behaviour - and to allow Littlefinger to verbally best her. He liked to find the words that would cut the deepest, to leave people unnerved and upset - all the better to guide them toward making a mistake.

“You mean to mock my brother by giving him this dagger?”

He looked startled, seeing her bear down upon him - as he should; she was lethal. Dark Sister heavy at her side, Sweet Sister buckled at her belt with Robb’s hunting-knife at her lower-back, she glowered viciously at the snake.

“A gift, my lady,” Littlefinger demurred. “The blade was meant to take his life.”

“I remember,” Larra snapped. “The cutthroat almost succeeded. He wounded Bran’s mother, cut her fingers to the bone as she fought him off.”

“Your brother couldn’t defend himself then… I gave him the blade intended to kill him, that he may now defend himself.”

“He doesn’t need to defend himself, he has _me_ to protect him!” Larra said fiercely.

“As you protected his younger brother?”

Larra let the breath catch in her throat, clenching her jaw.

“A difficult choice, my lady, I know…” Littlefinger murmured, looking obsequious, though his eyes glimmered with subtle malice, enjoying her reaction. Because, though she had anticipated he had an arsenal of vicious words with which to cut her…she wasn’t fully prepared to hear them. To feel them slice through her heart. The first person to say aloud what she had known to be true since she learned Rickon’s fate: She had sent him to his death, and Osha too. Nobody ever mentioned Osha…but Larra could never forget her. The only mother-figure she had ever known… “Ultimately, you made the wrong one. You trusted your brother’s life to your bannermen.”

“They broke their oaths and murdered my brother,” Larra said softly, then shook her head, frowning. “They got what they deserved.”

“And you?” Littlefinger purred, knowing how much pain he was causing. “You chose the cripple over the boy that was whole…”

“I did,” Larra gulped.

“You won’t always be there to protect him. On that day, he will have to protect himself. He’ll be needing that dagger,” Littlefinger said, and Larra just stopped herself from narrowing her eyes. There it was. A subtle _double entendre_ \- wise and practical advice concealing a veiled threat. Littlefinger’s dark eyes glided past her, and his thin lips twitched to a deferential smile as he bobbed her a courteous bow - not nearly as low as it would be for Sansa, but then, Sansa was legitimate heiress of Winterfell and the North, and he coveted her: Larra would always be a bastard, and Littlefinger did not forget it. “I meant no offence, my lady, in giving Lord Stark that dagger. A gift. The pledge of House Baelish, to support him, as I did his mother… I see so much of her in your sister. She had no time for you, though, did she?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“It must have been difficult, to return to Winterfell, only to find your sister in your place. Were you not trained from a young age by the maester, joining your brothers at their lessons, that you could rule the North in the stead of Lord Robb?”

“For the King in the North,” Larra corrected him coldly.

“Of course… Lady Catelyn did her daughters no favours in denying them an education.”

“She raised her daughters as noblewomen raise their daughters all over the world. To dance and embroider, to sing and to please, to anticipate their wedding, and hope for strong sons and beautiful daughters,” Larra said stoutly. _Defending Lady Catelyn now?!_

“But you…the bastard daughter of her husband… She took no interest in your upbringing.”

“I was raised by Father and Maester Luwin,” Larra said, frowning at Littlefinger. If he hoped to provoke a reaction out of her by bringing up Lady Catelyn’s absolute hatred for her and Jon, he had chosen the thing least likely to get under her skin: she had lived with that all her life. Lady Catelyn was dead: The twins she despised and wished dead had protected her children and reclaimed their ancestral home and inheritance for them.

“You had an extraordinary education.”

“Only my gender made my education extraordinary.”

Littlefinger pursed his lips at her interruption. His eyes narrowed, “All those years, that devotion to your studies…all wasted, while your sister takes the only position ever afforded you.”

Larra narrowed her eyes, and gave the mockingbird a weapon for his arsenal to use against her - and Sansa. “If I thought Sansa unworthy of the task, I would take it from her.”

She didn’t: Larra wouldn’t.

Sansa honoured the she-wolves that had come before them, ruling Winterfell fairly and wisely in times of winter and of war.

“I know she will do her best…but when the snows melt, and the North must face the wrath of the Iron Throne… She was so conflicted, when her father was arrested. Loyalty to him; loyalty to the crown… Do you know…it was Lady Sansa who alerted the Queen to her father’s betrayal? Before he could take her from the city, from her betrothed…”

Larra stared coldly.

“Not at all what she had intended, of course, your father’s arrest - she was so young…so _naïve_ … She could have had no idea that the King would take your father’s head… She begged so sweetly for mercy, realising what she had done,” Littlefinger sighed wistfully. “I still remember her on her knees before the Iron Throne…”

Larra stopped herself from shuddering. She felt _unclean_. As if she would have to scrape layers of slime from her body.

She’d _bet_ he liked to remember Sansa on her knees.

“…how pleased she was, to earn the King’s forgiveness, and sit by his side, his future Queen…” Littlefinger’s gaze strayed to Sansa as she glided around the courtyard, never looking at them but definitely marking them. “It suited her. Lady Sansa was _born_ to be a queen.” He gave Larra another small bow that somehow managed to be disrespectful, his lips twitching. “My lady…”

He turned and walked away, seeking Sansa. Always seeking Sansa.

Leaving Larra furious, her hand twitching for a blade.

 _A sweet kiss of steel indeed_ , Larra thought, the obsidian-and-dragonbone handle of the Valyrian steel dagger knocking against her forearm where it was belted at her waist.

She hated him. Hated that he so easily used people’s pain against them. And _hated_ that he lusted after Sansa, thought himself _entitled_ to her…

Hours later, she scowled as she entered the solar - just in case. To keep up the illusion. A clear voice said, “He’s not here,” as the door shut behind her, and she sighed, relaxing. She slumped onto the settle beside her sister; Sansa was sewing, an embroidery hoop in her lap, firelight glimmering off the pearlescent black silk thread, her needle winking silver with each pass through the fabric. Brandon sat in his wheeled chair before the hearth, tucked up in his furs, gazing into the fire. A new circular table had been brought in, set before the hearth, large and low, a replica of Winterfell taking shape as the carpenters finished each piece - every building, recreated as if for miniature dolls to live in. The better to plan fortifications for the war: They had to devise strategies to safeguard the castle if the walls and wards were breached…to manipulate the armies of the dead, instead of being overwhelmed by them… Larra’s weirwood cyvasse piece, with its exquisite scarlet silk leaves, already stood in the godswood.

It had been reclaimed from Sansa’s dressing-table, where she kept it safe, idols to pray to, alongside the personalised cyvasse pieces carved by their brothers.

The broken tower was missing: Larra spied it in Brandon’s pale hands.

“Where have you been?”

“Training, with Lady Brienne. I’m still getting used to the weight of Dark Sister… No-one has yet started fortifying the glasshouses, so I put together a team of apprentices to help the carpenters… I asked the stonemasons about rebuilding the Broken Tower for Bran, to accommodate for his wheelchair. We should rebuild it, even if it’s only a temporary structure - it was the highest watchtower, but it’s still the northernmost. It must be fortified,” Larra sighed heavily, resting her head back, her eyes closed. “And Maester Wolkan took off Ragnar’s arm-cast. He celebrated by teaming up with Little Jon, Karsi’s daughters and a couple of young Thenns to hunt down some of the Ice River children and try and scalp them.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Sansa said, laughing softly. “You missed supper in the hall. Beef and barley stew. There’s some in the pot on the hearth for you.”

“Thank you,” Larra grumbled, exhausted. Dealing with _people_ created a different kind of exhaustion than trudging through the snows of the True North. And she was starting to anticipate meals again, as a balm for the everyday strain of being a leader to tens of thousands of fraught, frightened people - none of whom liked or trusted each other very much.

There was a soft chuckle from Sansa, the scrape of cast-iron, and soft hands touched Larra’s where she had fallen into a doze on the settle: Sansa handed her a glazed earthenware bowl ladled full of rich, hearty stew, and a spoon. Only when she had finished the last mouthful, using her finger to wipe up the last of the rich gravy, did Sansa prompt her.

“Well?” she asked, as she dipped her slender fingers into another, smaller glazed earthenware bowl. The sound of dozens of tiny rings of obsidian sliding and clicking together was mesmerising, oddly calming.

“He made reference to you on your knees, at which point I just prevented myself from gutting him there and then,” Larra grumbled. Sansa wrinkled her nose.

“Tell me everything,” she said softly, so Larra did, from the moment she had sought out Littlefinger, to his threat.

“If Littlefinger gets his way, Bran won’t long outlive me,” Larra told Sansa. “He’s clever with his words, as if it was meant as a warning of Bran’s vulnerability…but it was a threat. Bran’s the last true-born son of Ned Stark. The only one who could contest you inheriting the North.”

“Jon’s already ensured that I am his legal heir, should anything happen to him. Littlefinger probably squealed with delight when he learned of it. One less thing he has to do,” Sansa said softly, sewing away. “The only reason Littlefinger could have to get rid of you and Bran is to leave me without family, to isolate me - as I was before. Friendless, grief-stricken - easier to dominate me that way, make himself the only one I can turn to for counsel…”

“How much longer must we endure him?” Larra asked darkly. “He lusts after you.”

“And I know it,” Sansa said, with a bite to her words. She sewed away. “Not very much longer. We must let him believe he is creating discord between us, that everything is going exactly as he has predicted it would.”

“He’ll make certain he’s prepared if it doesn’t,” Larra reminded Sansa, who nodded.

“I imagine when you’re hunting, you don’t allow your prey to realise they’re marked for death - if you want to be quick and efficient, not allow their instincts to warn them of the danger and flee,” Sansa mused, and Larra nodded. “That is exactly what we are doing with Littlefinger.”

“Snaring him in a direwolf-trap,” Larra mused, her lips twitching with irony. “What would you like me to do next?”

“What else did Littlefinger tell you?” Larra recounted exactly what Littlefinger had said, about Sansa’s conflicted loyalties, how she had begged for Father’s life when she had realised how naïve she had been…

Sansa was ashamed. It was true, all of it, from a certain perspective: Littlefinger had made Sansa sound a traitor, not a frightened girl.

“You were utterly at their mercy the moment Father learned the truth about Cersei’s bastards,” Larra sighed, and it turned into a yawn she had to stifle, her eyes smarting. It had been a _long_ day. Scolding Little Jon and Ragnar - and the other children - had reminded her so vividly of scolding Rickon and Bran - before his fall - when they were still allowed to be little boys getting into mischief, trying to emulate their older-brothers, almost losing eyes and fingers as they played with one of Theon’s stolen hunting-knives, and given one of Larra’s Northern Long-Haired Snow-Cats a haircut.

“But the truth remains that I _did_ tell Cersei that Father intended to return to Winterfell with us,” Sansa sighed.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Brandon softly, staring into the fire. “Many plans were in motion the moment Father arrived in King’s Landing, seeking the truth of Jon Arryn’s death. If they had not snatched Father then, Cersei would have invented any of a dozen other falsehoods to charge against him.”

“I know what we do next,” Larra said, sitting up a little straighter, frowning.

“What?”

“Littlefinger wants me to believe you’re a traitor,” Larra said, glancing at Sansa. In the firelight, her blue eyes glowed, her hands pale and elegant as she deftly sewed. “I must unearth evidence of your treachery.”

“You wish to fabricate something?” Sansa frowned.

“I don’t need to.”

Sansa looked unnerved, her eyes widening. Larra smiled softly, though her eyes were grim and sad. “Everything comes down to context, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Good. I want you worried, so your reaction is genuine when I attack you.”

“ _Larra_.”

“He knows you too well. He’ll be able to tell if you’re putting it on,” Larra reminded Sansa.

“Very well,” Sansa relented, frowning at Larra, as if trying to figure out just what hideousness Larra could unearth that would incriminate her.

There was a soft knock on the door to the solar. “ _Maester Wolkan, my ladies, my lord_.”

“Oh, am I a lady now?”

“Not sprawled like that, you’re not,” Sansa chided, and Larra smirked, sitting up straighter, though her leather-clad legs were still stretched out before her, ankles crossed. “Come in!” The tall and rather timid maester appeared, bowing his head so that his great chain of office clinked and shone in the firelight.

“A raven, my lady,” Maester Wolkan said, addressing Sansa but nodding respectfully to Larra, whose position was still ambiguous, and to Brandon. “Highgarden has been sacked. The only Tyrells to survive were those who had journeyed to Dragonstone, guests of Queen Daenerys Targaryen.”

“Lady Olenna?”

“One among the survivors. With the new Lady Tyrell, a young woman named Alynore…and, it is reported, five girls under the age of thirteen,” Maester Wolkan said grimly.

“ _Growing strong_ …” Larra said softly, shaking her head and sighing. “I’ll give it to Cersei; she is brutally efficient. First the Sept of Baelor…now the breadbasket of Westeros. She’s rid King’s Landing of the Faith Militant’s chokehold, and seized control of the Reach to feed the masses who suffered under the Sparrows. One wonders how she’ll use Daenerys’ invasion to solidify the people’s love for her.”

“She’s spent twenty years learning how best to play this game,” Sansa said grimly. “This Dragon Queen from Essos will not have faced anything like Cersei before.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Larra agreed, with a heavy sigh.

“Thank you, Maester Wolkan,” Sansa murmured.

Larra glanced up. “Maester Wolkan…might I accompany you back to the Maester’s Tower? I’m in need of your assistance,” Larra said.

“Of course, my lady,” Maester Wolkan bowed his head deferentially, though he sounded surprised. Groaning, Larra unfolded from the settle, her bones aching, and stretched luxuriously, rubbing her face. She dipped to kiss Sansa’s cheek, and rumple Brandon’s hair as she passed, and the maester bowed to Sansa before retreating after Larra. It was cooler, outside of the solar - which Sansa preferred to keep warm - much more comfortable for Larra, who found herself more animated away from the lulling fire.

She had not returned to the Maester’s Tower - _Maester Luwin’s tower_ \- since her return. It was less terrifying than heading into the crypt, but not by much: Maester Luwin haunted the tower, and she felt his presence as she climbed the staircase. Some of her earliest memories were struggling with the hems of her dresses as she climbed the spiral staircase, and the crinkled face of Maester Luwin, creased into a smile of warmth and indulgence as she managed to reach the topmost stair, spilling over the threshold in a tangle of limbs and long braids and hated hems. He always heard her climbing the stairs, even when she had been older. And he had always met her with a warm smile full of love and affection lighting up his lined face. Always.

A fissure appeared in her heart - what little remained of it that was still unblemished through all she had endured - as she paused on the threshold, then pushed the door open. At the hearth was a familiar chair, high-backed, engraved with direwolves…and beside it, a small rocking-chair with an embroidered cushion and a little padded footstool. Larra’s. Maester Luwin had had them made: Larra had spent so much time in the Tower, often she had curled up on the stones in front of the hearth and dozed, cuddling one of her snow-cats or dolls, soothed by the scratching of Maester Luwin’s quill. Sometimes she would feed the ravens for Maester Luwin; sometimes she would read through the raven-scrolls and sort them; other times, especially as a child, she had climbed into Maester Luwin’s lap, and he would let her read to him. He gave her the rarest of things - cuddles, and praise. Undiluted affection, _love_. He had cherished their time together, taken great pride in her every accomplishment, nurtured her curiosity, taught her the skills to indulge her interests, and sometimes…sometimes they had sat before a small fire, and he had held her hand and let her sniffle and cry over the unfairness of it all.

And there…there on the mantelpiece…a small, octagonal walnut box, the lid inlaid, the sides beautifully engraved. It had belonged to Maester Luwin’s mother: And in it, he had always kept biscuits. Some of them dimpled with jam; others iced; some sprinkled with spices; some studded with exotic nuts. His one indulgence, Father had always said: Maester Luwin had earned every morsel. As a little girl, the worst of Larra’s wounds could be healed by time spent in front of the hearth, with Maester Luwin listening to even the most trivial of her hurts, and he would hold her hand, give her a reassuring smile, brush her curls away from her face, and let her choose a little biscuit from the precious box. The biscuits were a treat: But it was the maester’s attention and love that Larra always came back for.

She could imagine the Maester’s heartbroken delight at her return, with Bran safe and sound…and that made it hurt all the more - because he should be here. Like Rickon, like Hodor, like Osha, and so many others…

Larra sniffed and cleared her throat, her fingers twitching to feel the engravings carved into the back of the rocking-chair, to reach for the biscuit-box, aching to hear the soft voice say, “ _Larra_ ,” softly, sighing, and the gentle smile of encouragement to pour it all out to him, all her worries and woes.

“Will you be wanting the chests, my lady?” Maester Wolkan asked, and Larra glanced at him, startled.

“Chests?”

“Yes, my lady…in storage,” Maester Wolkan said. “When first I took up residence in the Tower I discovered one of the storage-rooms filled with chests…it was there I found the previous maester’s progresses, written to document your education.”

Larra blinked. Stared at the maester. He seemed unsettled by her unwavering focus - far too afraid to be noticed, after years at the Dreadfort.

“I… That’s not… Please show me,” she said softly. And the maester guided her to one of the storage-rooms high in the tower, furniture draped with dust-sheets, and great trunks neatly arranged on top of each other, neat stacks of them. There were other things, too, propped against the trunks and the walls, draped with a cloth. Just in front of her, the dust-cloth not quite in place over it, was another trunk, this one smaller than any of the others, and Larra fell to her knees in front of it, tearing away the dust-cloth, her heart seizing, feeling as if she may vomit as sudden dizziness washed over her, grief so thick she could taste it in her mouth. The trunk was of a rich, dark-gold wood, polished to a high shine, plain, except for the twin direwolves carved on each panel, and the hinged lid, which had been upholstered with silk, the dove-grey fabric embroidered prettily with her name, and her favourite flowers and animals - even a beautiful bronze-and-jade dragon from her dreams Larra now knew to be Rhaegal. It was intricate, and the incredibly beautiful fabric and the silk embroidery threads had come all the way from Qarth - a name-day gift from Lord Manderly.

She dove to her knees before her trunk, snatching the lid open. She lifted a heavy, soft, pale-grey blanket scattered with dried lavender from the top, and her eyes burned, and she sighed, “Oh, _Maester Luwin_ …”

Inside were her passion-projects. The wooden toys and puzzle-mazes and spinning-tops she had carved and created; the dolls she had stuffed and stitched and made miniature frocks for, toy animals she had knitted; the toys she had created with Maester Luwin’s help to coax Rickon to learn his letters and numbers; envelopes full of seeds she had gathered at the end of summer; her favourite earthenware mug she had thrown on the potter’s wheel and glazed herself; a skein of yarn she had dyed herself and never had the time to knit with; and the intricate shawl she had knitted, fine and delicately patterned, slate-grey and white and dove-grey; her inkstone set, and her paint-box and the brushes Maester Luwin had taught her how to make; the crude dagger Mikken had tutored her to make, after much wheedling to let her into the forge; and a neat pile of _books_ Maester Luwin had helped her bind together after she had completed each illustration and instalment of one of her stories or histories or biographies. A dozen of them, each book-cover bound in dyed leather that she had learned to emboss herself, each thick page preserving her vibrant watercolour illustrations, and the stories she had dreamed up to entertain her siblings. There were charcoal sketches, too…and, tucked into a neat pile and bound together by a length of deep purple silk-velvet ribbon…

Larra’s hand shook as she reached for them, picked them up, rested the small but heavy pile in her lap. Portraits. She had mixed the oil-paints herself, from pigments gifted her by Lord Manderly - and Father, when Maester Luwin had advised him that Larra be taught to paint to exorcise the subjects of her queer dreams. She had spent meticulous hours painting layer after layer, waiting for each to dry before adding and removing, altering… Portraits of those she loved…and even one of the woman who had loathed her…

All of them.

Her hand paused as she reached to pull on the ribbon. But she couldn’t do it. Instead, she tucked the pile back into the trunk, turning to the things propped against the other trunks, the walls… She removed the dust-clothes, and knew… Her paintings. All of them. Stored here by Maester Luwin. She couldn’t bear to look through them: It was enough to know they were here. That they had not been burned, protected by their presence in the Maester’s Tower - though they had lived in her chamber. She had thought all that remained of her presence in the castle was the mobile by her window, displaying odd trinkets she had accumulated, and which had kept Rickon absorbed as he sat in her lap, listening to her read.

She tucked everything back inside the trunk. She had made everything, including the trunk itself. Maester Luwin had preserved it - preserved everything she had ever made…as if it was _precious_.

“Thank you for showing me these, Maester Wolkan,” Larra said, and even to herself, her voice sounded hollow, exhausted - devoid of emotion. “In the morning, would you see to it that these trunks are removed to my chamber?”

“Of course, my lady,” Maester Wolkan nodded.

“As to the matter I wished to ask for your help with,” Larra said, sighing, her back burning as if the trunks glared at her, refusing to be ignored. “I seek a raven-scroll.”

“Maester Luwin kept meticulous files, my lady; everything organised by point of origin and date of receipt,” Maester Wolkan informed her.

“I seek a scroll written by my sister,” Larra told him, and Maester Wolkan faltered. “You shall know which scroll I mean, for if you are the man I believe you are, you will be anxious about what I intend to do with it. It was addressed to my brother Robb.”

It didn’t take the maester long to find the scroll, and he did look agitated when he returned to Larra, offering the scroll she remembered so well.

The next day, she was out-of-doors but for mealtimes: When she went to wash her face and hands before dinner in the great hall, she found the trunks from the Maester’s Tower neatly stacked inside her chamber, with the smallest - the one with the padded, upholstered lid with her name embroidered on it, tucked by her rocking-chair under the window. Perhaps Maester Wolkan was more observant than Larra realised: the biscuit-box rested on a small occasional table beside the rocking-chair, and across the hearth was the rocking-chair of her youth, with its embroidered cushion and tiny footstool.

She had kept the scroll on her all day, tucked safely away. Now she went to her trunk, and removed the pile of small portraits, unfastening the knotted ribbon. She did not look at the portraits themselves, her heart stuttering, but rather sought one in particular. The woman who had loathed her: Larra had not had the time to finish the painting before her sisters had left for King’s Landing. It was supposed to be a gift, to take with them…

Before heading down to the great hall, she entered the Lord’s chamber - set aside by Jon for Sansa: The candles were not lit, nor was the fire, though fresh wood rested, ready to be kindled for a fire should the lady desire it… There was a dressing-table, littered with fine porcelain pots and glass bottles, hair-pins and combs and a fine horsehair brush. Sansa’s nightgown was already laid out across the end of the large bed, newly made, the headboard engraved with direwolves, and laden with soft knitted blankets in grey and white, a patchwork quilt, linens trimmed with crochet, glistening silver furs.

Larra frowned at the portrait. It was small, but detailed. She had had to use her imagination, and think how it might have been to have Lady Catelyn smile at her with love pouring from her eyes, her hard, thin, sour mouth turned up at the corners in a gentle, coaxing smile full of encouragement and pride… She had painted Lady Catelyn for her daughters, as her daughters had known her. Otherwise, Larra would never have deigned to immortalise the malicious cunt who had wanted them dead since she arrived at Winterfell to find them in the nursery…

In her heart, Larra knew she would have slit Lady Catelyn’s throat herself if it meant saving Robb’s life, or Sansa’s, or Arya’s, or Bran or Rickon. But she had been their mother. No matter how she had treated Larra and Jon, she had loved her children with a ferocity that might have broken Larra to be deprived of, had Lady Catelyn’s malice not cured Larra of any yearning for her approval, had Larra grown up to have any respect for the woman. She hadn’t; Larra had no respect even for the memory of Lady Catelyn. But Larra loved her sisters. For Sansa, for Arya, she had painted their mother, to take with them to King’s Landing… Now, she nestled the small painting on Sansa’s dressing-table, propped against the looking-glass.

Sansa would find it, and no doubt be distraught by its presence, and her memories…but it was Larra’s apology, for picking this fight with her tonight. For saying horrendous things to provoke her, and let Littlefinger believe they were turning on each other.

Who, better than sisters, knew how to truly hurt each other?

* * *

The great hall was packed with people, the heat smothering, the scent of supper rich and heady, and Larra hated the heat as she took her seat beside Sansa at the high table, the hearth roaring with a great blaze at their backs.

She reached for an earthenware jug and poured herself a healthy mug of dark stout, as a maid set a woven basket full of small bread rolls still warm from the ovens and covered by a fine linen napkin in front of her; a tureen of stew already rested, steaming, in front of Sansa, the ladle propped inside to serve herself, while serving-girls made the rounds, doling portions of stew to everyone else. It was a symbol of their status, the tureen left with the ladle, to serve themselves more if they so chose. Larra reached and ladled herself some stew, and finished half of it before reaching out and setting the raven-scroll on the polished oak table between them. She was acutely aware that Littlefinger sat on Sansa’s other side, beyond Lord Royce, who had been invited to dine at the high table.

“What’s that?”

“You’re sitting exactly where Robb was when he first read that scroll…his traitorous sister, summoning him to King’s Landing - to his death.”

Sansa blinked, taken aback. Her eyes flitted to the scroll, and she frowned delicately before reaching for the scroll. Her face fell, her chest rising and falling quickly, as she read the scroll.

“I was forced to write - “

“Did they hold a sword over your neck? Threaten you with torture? No… The worst thing they ever did to you was marry you to the Imp… You knew what would happen when Robb received that scroll. Our fierce, honourable brother. He would come to King’s Landing and swear fealty to King Joffrey to protect you, to save Father,” Larra said coldly, and she saw Sansa gulp. It had to be real, they had decided. “Only he didn’t. He learned his lesson from our grandfather: Never go south on the summons of a king - not without an army.”

“He started a war,” Sansa said curtly. “Joffrey punished me for it; he could have killed me whenever he wished.”

“He didn’t… And now he is dead. And Cersei sits upon the Iron Throne… A curious thing. All those years with Cersei, her little pet, her _little dove_ …” Larra emulated every look Lady Catelyn had ever given her as she sneered at Sansa. “Her children are dead, she sits upon the Iron Throne…and you sit beside the King in the North. A bastard who took your blood-right, your legitimate inheritance, your place as heir to the North.”

“Jon earned his crown.”

“Did he? He abandoned his post at the Wall; that makes him an oath-breaker… He won a battle. Does that make him a king? And you let him go south to be snared in the clutches of the Dragon Queen’s talons… What better way to get Jon out of the way than allow someone else to do it for you?” Larra said, hostile, her eyes narrowed. “The same way you were spirited away when Joffrey was assassinated. I wonder…whether you and Cersei conspired together to kill him, to place her on the Iron Throne…whether she has chosen her successor, her protégé, her little _dove_ , the only one capable of bringing the North back under the control of the Iron Throne. Take the North…and one day, take the Iron Throne.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Cersei ordered her Master of Coin to spirit you away from King’s Landing… And here he remains, advising you…the Queen’s ambassador, your mentor… It all began with this letter, I suppose… It determined the fate of our House, tore the ragged remains of our family asunder…left us vulnerable, an open wound… All so you would be queen.”

“You’re…you’re confused, paranoid. Jealous,” Sansa said, looking flustered. “That I reclaimed Winterfell, and united the North with Jon. Not you. _Me_.”

“After you _betrayed_ it. Betrayed your House, betrayed the North. You betrayed your family, led them to their deaths,” Larra said harshly, and Sansa blanched.

“I did what I had to do to survive.”

“Worked well, didn’t it,” Larra said tartly. “Everyone else is dead, and yet here you are, sitting pretty ruling the North, sowing dissent among Jon’s bannermen while he risks his life to secure weapons and allies.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Am I? All you’ve ever wanted was to be a queen. Perhaps you did murder Joffrey after all. Convenient they pinned it on your husband, Queen Cersei’s own despised brother. She turned on him…” Larra said softly, dangerous. “You tried to lure Robb south to his death. What a grand conspiracy. Both of you walked away with your hands clean… How long before you convince the Northmen that you are the only _legitimate_ choice as Northern sovereign.”

“I will do my duty to the North. To Winterfell.”

“To House Stark. And we both know Jon’s not a Stark.”

She finished her stew. Did not make her apologies or excuses as she pushed away from the table, and strode away. Didn’t have to look back to feel Littlefinger’s smug little smile as Sansa stared, and Lord Royce lowered his eyes to his stew, delicately ignoring the vicious argument between sisters.

It wasn’t his place to make judgements…from what he had seen of Lady Sansa, she was a capable and devoted leader. The bastard sister was ferocious, but playful, wise and kind too, inspiring smiles and loyalty - and lust - wherever she went, unafraid to talk to anyone, or give her time freely to those who desired it. Lord Royce wondered whether Littlefinger wasn’t behind this spat: The sisters had been seen together, and though Lady Stark was elegant and aloof, and the bastard was wild, vibrant and chilling, they seemed to warm each other.

In that moment, Lord Royce was the more discerning of the two men: He had grown up with Ned Stark, after all, at the Eyrie, fostered with Jon Arryn. He had warred bedside Ned Stark, who had fought like a direwolf possessed to avenge his father and brother, to rescue his younger sister… Lord Royce knew that nothing came between Stark siblings. Even if one was denied the name.

* * *

“Where on earth did she find it?”

“You’re asking the wrong question,” Littlefinger murmured, sliding a cunning glance at Sansa. “Not where… _why_? She’s your sister. _Half_ -sister. You know her far better than I ever could.” He was silent for a moment, as Sansa frowned, pressing her fingers to her brow. “What do you think she wants?”

Sansa stared at him, as if uncertain, confused. He gave her a soft look, as if he sympathised with her struggle to understand the finer points of political intrigue. Softly, he told her the secret that had made him _Littlefinger_ : “Sometimes, when I try to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do? Then I ask myself, how well does that reason explain what they say, and what they do? So, tell me…what’s the worst thing she could want?”

“She could want me dead…because she thinks I betrayed my family, and caused their deaths, conspired with our enemies, because she thinks…I’m a threat to Jon…”

“Could she murder her own sister?”

“ _Half_ -sister. If it came down to it, me or Jon… She would not hesitate to protect Jon.”

“Why did she unearth the letter Cersei made you write?”

“To provide proof of my betrayals… To provide justification after she murders me.”

“And…after she murders you…what does she become?”

“Lady of Winterfell. Jon’s heir… Heir to Winterfell… Queen in the North. Everything my mother always feared… And she was right to!” Sansa gasped, her eyes widening.

“She said something interesting to me, that day in the courtyard, when I gifted Lord Stark that priceless Valyrian steel dagger…that if she thought for a moment you were unequal to the task of ruling the North…she would take it from you.”

Sansa’s lips parted, seemingly stunned.

“She would not be so bold.”

“She has been beyond the Wall for years. Those savages live by no laws made by men,” Littlefinger muttered. “She has forgotten her true place in the world. Her brother may have been named King…but he _can_ be unnamed…and regardless, she remains what she has always been. A bastard girl from the North with ideas beyond her station, too foolish not to accept offers of marriage to provide herself with comfort and wealth that would otherwise be denied her. She has her sights set on a greater prize.”

She slumped slightly in her carved chair.

“Winterfell. Ruling the North, with Jon,” Sansa murmured, her eyelashes fluttering as her gaze darted about the hall, long shadows stretching to the high, hammer-beam ceiling. “She would…would take Winterfell as the home my mother always denied them, cast me out or murder me as my mother wished to do to them… This is her revenge, for my mother’s mistreatment…for _my_ disdain toward them… Larra never forgot anything.”

“What you next have to ask yourself…what must _I_ do, to anticipate their treachery, and evade blame while they sabotage themselves in their desperation to ruin me?” Littlefinger murmured, and Sansa stared at him, her lips parted.

“I…I must act quickly - before…before Jon returns. Before she can gain a hold over the bannermen,” Sansa stammered, licking her lips daintily. “She always held them captivated. They adored her.”

“They _lust_ after her,” Littlefinger corrected. “She is a very beautiful woman. And she has denied them.” His eyes glowed, as he murmured, “There is nothing so exquisite, so attractive, as what has been denied you. And to finally _claim_ it…that is excruciating ecstasy.”

Sansa shivered, glancing at the man. His eyes were dark, glittering in the firelight, and she knew what he was inferring. That claiming _her_ would be an exquisite agony.

“What do you think I should do?” she breathed, leaning toward him, her expression conflicted.

“Make it public,” he advised silkily. “Make it irrefutable. You are the daughter of Ned Stark. Call upon your honour as a daughter of the North, the eldest, only surviving true-born daughter of their beloved liege-lord… Make it just…and inescapable.”

“What about Jon?”

“The King has had to make many hard decisions on his journey back to Winterfell, which he only fought to reclaim because of you… I imagine there is little he would not do for you,” Littlefinger said. “He loves you. To see his twin maddened by all that happened to her beyond the Wall, threatening you, a danger to all the North is rebuilding… He would not blame you, for protecting yourself in his absence…”

“Then…I know what I must do,” Sansa breathed, her hands shaking.

“Good,” Littlefinger said, and he smiled softly. “But you needn’t do it tonight. Rest. You must make arrangements. But your half-sister is dangerous; if I were you, I would take precaution not to be alone in her presence. It may be wise to confine her, for your protection.”

“She would know…she would know I distrust her,” Sansa said, her eyes widening. “She escaped Winterfell once, and none knows how... She survived the True North with a cripple, when it would seem to be impossible…”

“That’s interesting…”

“What is?”

“The twin-sister of the bastard who has claimed the North as his own survived, beyond the Wall, with a cripple and a simpleton, while even the fiercest wildlings have fled?” Littlefinger mused, sliding her a calculating look. “More likely, Jon was indeed protecting them…and now that he has claimed the North for himself, there are only two who could take it from him…”

“Brandon…and me,” Sansa breathed.

“If I were you, I would probe a little deeper into where your brother was, beyond the Wall,” Littlefinger suggested. “Is he as you remember?”

“No, he is…he is _altered_.”

“As you were altered during your captivity…”

“You think Larra kept Bran captive?”

“The last true-born son of Ned Stark - and a cripple, least likely to grow to wield a sword against them,” Littlefinger said, shrugging slightly. “Being utterly vulnerable to her for so many years, his fear of her would explain his silence…his yearning to sit beneath the weirwood, in the open space and fresh air…a welcome reprieve from captivity.”

“But why would Jon leave me at Winterfell…? Because he knew Larra was on her journey home,” Sansa murmured, and Littlefinger nodded slightly.

“And if you and your brother were to die tragically, for example…during a siege…”

“You think Jon has been conspiring with Larra this whole time?”

“I think the timing is suspect. And I think Jon Snow is taking his time on Dragonstone, not for obsidian… They say the Dragon Queen is very beautiful.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Daenerys Targaryen is young and unmarried. Jon Snow is young and unmarried. A political alliance between them would make them a formidable pair…would grant Jon certain protections…”

“Jon would not surrender the Northern crown to a Targaryen invader!” Sansa breathed, eyes widening.

“There are many different ways to yield, without surrendering anything,” Littlefinger said. “One thing at a time. For now…the sister is a danger to you.”

“I cannot let her know that I have discovered her intentions,” Sansa said softly.

“Then…I would not prolong the inevitable,” Littlefinger sighed, as if saddened by the whole thing. “The risk you pose yourself by letting her roam unfettered around this castle…”

“I will be clever about it,” Sansa said determinedly, “so that she does not know she is in a trap until it is too late.”

“You’re learning.”

* * *

The Tyrell rooms were warm, and cosy, as if they had brought the warmth and elegance of Highgarden with them. Jon couldn’t imagine Queen Selyse paying much attention to soft furnishings intended to give comfort; she had lacked taste. But the Tyrell rooms had been decorated, fit for Ladies of the Reach, and Lady Olenna’s chamber was elegant, definitely expensive, but far simpler than Jon would have expected. A dressing-table, a chaise, and the great four-poster bed in which Lady Olenna rested, propped up by pillows and cushions.

She wore a nightgown and a heavy jacquard robe, and Jon was startled to see her without her crespine or wimple, her iron-grey hair braided over her shoulder. Her small, pale eyes lanced to Jon as he entered the chamber, and a maid bobbed a curtsy, setting an exquisite Qartheen tea-service on a little table by the bed, while a servant carried a chair to her bedside.

“Do forgive me, Your Grace… You must allow for age and infirmity, or I should curtsy before you,” said the Queen of Thorns.

“I would not expect it of you, my lady,” Jon said, sighing softly, and he strode over to the old lady’s bedside. As he sat, he frowned, eyeing the Queen of Thorns shrewdly; she winced, as she adjusted her position against the mound of cushions. She looked pale, but healthier than the last time he had seen her - certainly more animated. There was an ironic glint in her eyes that spoke of her continued recovery: Only when the Queen of Thorns ran out of barbs would they truly be worried. “I hope you’re not putting yourself in discomfort on my account.”

“Hmph,” Lady Olenna scoffed, smirking. “I’m an old woman, Your Grace. Discomfort comes with the territory.”

“The maester is doing all he can to ease your symptoms?”

“Oh, he pressed milk-of-the-poppy. If I could get through multiple childbirths and the massacre of my House without resorting to its numbing effects, a slight heart-ache will not do it,” Lady Olenna said brusquely. “I feel much better.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Jon said earnestly. “The girls have been telling me that you’re getting stronger, terrorising the servants with renewed vigour.”

“ _’Terrorising servants with renewed vigour_ ’ - that was Cassia, wasn’t it?” Lady Olenna guessed, her lips twitching with amusement, and Jon smiled.

“She’s fond of words,” he said; every morning, he saw the little girls walking - unchaperoned - to Rhaegar’s Garden, as they had renamed it. He could hear their squeals of delight, their laughter, and was glad of it.

“There is nothing quite as cutting - and amusing - as a child’s candour,” Lady Olenna smiled. “You’ll always get an honest answer from them, no matter how terrible it is.”

“I remember,” Jon nodded, thinking of Arya. “My little sister had to be taught to soften absolute honesty with kindness. She was a fierce advocate of _truth_.”

“No matter how terrible,” Lady Olenna said, chuckling softly, but the smile faded as she gazed at Jon. “Lady Sansa once mentioned to Margaery her wild little sister. Arya. That was her name. Lady Sansa said she had always wished to have sisters and cousins like Margaery’s - little ladies who loved dancing and embroidery… How she must have ached for her fierce sister, surrounded by my dainty little granddaughters… One never truly appreciates the value of a thing, until it is ripped away.”

Jon didn’t know what to say: He remained silent. His father had never said much, and yet people had somehow always been eager to confide in him. They had trusted him.

“Will you have some tea, Your Grace?” Lady Olenna asked. “If you would be so kind, I dislike a strong brew; pour mine first.”

“Of course, my lady,” Jon said softly, thinking back to preparing the Lord Commander’s hot spiced wine at the Wall. Quiet and amenable, but watchful, learning. He had learned how to be a leader through Lord Commander Mormont’s example - exactly as the Lord Commander had intended. He reached for a delicate, painted porcelain teapot and a rose-filigree-handled tea-strainer, pouring a cup of amber liquid for Lady Olenna. The earthy scent of black tea mingled with a delicate hint of citrus teased Jon’s nose, invigorating and bright. He passed the lady her teacup and painted saucer, and poured himself a cup.

“That’s very delicate,” he said thoughtfully, his stomach aching, feeling decidedly morose, as he thought of Sansa, and of Larra - who had hated southern teas because they were so heavy with bergamot. He sipped the tea; it _was_ delicate, and comforting. “Sansa would adore that.”

“She was fond of citrus, I recall,” Lady Olenna said. “Not many citrus trees at Winterfell.”

“Not many.”

“But a very grand godswood, allegedly. Ten-thousand years untouched by Man,” Lady Olenna said, and Jon glanced at her, nodding. “My granddaughters have spoken of nothing but their time in the garden with the King. You’ve quite ensnared their darling little hearts.”

“They’re sweet girls,” Jon said fondly.

“You are a grim warrior, and even more introverted king. It is easy to forget, given your nature, that you were once a young boy in the schoolroom with your siblings,” Lady Olenna said thoughtfully, eyeing Jon shrewdly. “That you are an older-brother to _sisters_. I was reminded of it in your kindness toward my granddaughters. It is easy to be cruel; but to be gentle, and patient, and compassionate…that takes some doing. I imagine your sisters found you the gentlest and most thoughtful of their brothers.”

“They remind me of my sisters, as they were…”

“Not many like the girls in the North.”

“No. The girls of the North are made of a tougher stuff,” Jon said carefully, and Lady Olenna smirked.

“They’re hard bitches,” she said, and Jon grinned.

“You should’ve married a Northman,” he said, and Lady Olenna chuckled. “You would have been well-suited. And the lords would have been well-matched… You remind me of one of my bannermen.”

“Do I?”

“Aye. Lady Mormont. She’s not yet a woman, but after we reclaimed Winterfell and the banners had been called, she stood in front of my lords and shamed them,” Jon said fondly, and Lady Olenna chuckled again. “She named me King in the North… You’d like the little bear.”

“One day, when I am stronger, perhaps I shall journey to the Northern court to meet this Kingmaker.”

“You would be very welcome, my lady,” Jon said earnestly.

“And the Lady Tyrell?” Lady Olenna prompted, and Jon looked up sharply over the rim of his teacup, which he lowered slowly. The Queen of Thorns was smirking knowingly.

He frowned. “Lady Tyrell’s request is why you invited me here.”

“Of course,” Lady Olenna said, smiling serenely. She _knew_? “You didn’t think my granddaughter would be emboldened to make such a request of you without knowing she had my support?”

“And she does?”

“I must admit, I did not expect it from her,” Lady Olenna said softly. “It is rather startling to be taken by surprise by one’s own kin. I suppose that is my own fault; I never paid enough attention to her, or the others… I underestimated my granddaughter. She is proving herself more than worthy a successor.”

“And…you would want such a life for your granddaughter?”

“This is the life she is choosing for herself; how many of us have such a luxury?” Lady Olenna sighed.

“Even if it’s the wrong path?” Jon prompted.

“And why should it be wrong?”

“She’s choosing a life of solitude,” Jon said. “She doesn’t deserve that.”

“She’s buying herself time, that she make the wiser choices to benefit all,” Lady Olenna said, her eyes shrewd as she gazed at Jon. Her gaze turned almost fond. “You care for her.”

“I don’t know how anyone couldn’t,” Jon said, clearing his throat. “She’s calm and graceful and clever.”

“Not to mention a beauty.”

“Aye, not to mention that,” Jon said wryly.

“When my granddaughter proposed the idea, I laughed, I’ll admit. She startled me. But it is cunning, and expedient. And to ask _you_ …”

“Why did she ask me?”

“Because you are a man of honour. Least likely to jump into her bed purely because she asked you to,” Lady Olenna smirked. “Who would ever suspect you of fathering a child by her? As inconceivable - if you’ll pardon the pun - as Ned Stark returning from war with bastards of his own. Unaccountable of him, to go off to war, and return from Dorne with twin babies. When all he sought was his dear sister. Strange…” Her smile was almost mocking. “The honourable Ned Stark goes in search of Lyanna…and returns to Winterfell with twin babes, and a pile of bones that were his sister’s.”

Dread curdled the tea in his stomach. He stared at Lady Olenna, who smiled sadly, almost apologetic.

“He never told you her name, did he? Your mother’s,” Lady Olenna said.

“He never even told his wife who she was,” Jon said, swallowing the dread that always churned in his stomach whenever he thought of Lady Catelyn.

“I imagine that must have made your childhood rather traumatic,” Lady Olenna mused. “Still…safer for you, for Lord Stark to remain silent…allow the world to think the worst of him…so they never guessed at the truth.”

Jon sat, reeling.

It couldn’t be. The Queen of Thorns was just trying to wound him… _but why would she_ , he thought, _when her granddaughter has asked this favour of me_?

“You imply I was never my father’s son,” he said, aware his voice had the cold bite of steel he often used when speaking with Queen Daenerys.

“Oh, you are his, absolutely,” Lady Olenna chuckled, unperturbed by his tone - possibly, she enjoyed it. There were few strong men in Lady Olenna’s life - even fewer, now. “You are Ned Stark’s son…though if he laid with your mother, I will eat my corset.” Jon blinked, and the old lady chuckled. She sighed, shaking her head. “Lyanna Stark disappeared with Rhaegar Targaryen…she died, they say in Ned Stark’s arms…and he returned to Winterfell with infant twins.”

Jon stared at her.

She winced. “If I were an honourable man, who loved his sister fiercely, and would do whatever it took to protect her…protect her virtue, protect her children…”

In his mind, he was stood in the ravenry, feeding the birds for a blind, kind and shrewd old maester. A Targaryen, hidden in the snows of the far North, safe from the sharp blades of Robert Baratheon and his famous wrath. “ _What is honour compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile_?”

Lady Olenna gave him a strange look. “I would not have taken you for a philosopher, Your Grace.”

“I’m not. Something Maester Aemon told me at Castle Black, when I learned Robb had called the banners and marched to war to free Father…” Jon sighed, gazing at Lady Olenna. “You believe Lady Lyanna was my mother?”

“What wouldn’t he have sacrificed, for his family?” Lady Olenna said softly. “Lord Varys tells me that Lord Stark was prepared to die, until they threatened your sister’s life… He confessed to treason to protect her. His daughter. What would you do for your sister?”

Cold rage gripped Jon, shooting ice through his veins; the thought of Littlefinger, sniffing around Sansa, obsequious and foul and avaricious, lusting after her…his fingers twitched, aching to wrap themselves around his sword, or Littlefinger’s throat once more… The thought of leaving her there, with him…was intolerable. The idea that he might hurt her…that he _had_ hurt her, selling her to their enemies, that he was a cause of Sansa’s torture…

Lady Olenna nodded understandingly. “It is my belief that Lord Stark sacrificed his honour for his sister’s virtue. To protect _you_.”

 _If Lyanna Stark is my mother…then…Rhaegar Targaryen was my father_ …

“To protect the child forced on his sister?”

Lady Olenna’s smile was sad and almost pitying. “Jon… Until direwolves learn to write, the hunter will always be victorious… Rhaegar died; Robert took the crown. Do you imagine, had Rhaegar and Lyanna lived, that the tales would have had Rhaegar kidnapping and raping the girl? I knew the Last Dragon: It would have gone against everything that he stood for, to abuse and dishonour Lyanna Stark. After what he witnessed his mother endure all those years… Rhaegar…was a romantic. A grim warrior with the heart of a poet - he believed…in _love_. When the histories are written by the winning side, it is always best to take them with a handful of salt.”

Jon gulped, stared at the old lady. “I do not know what you think you could get out of sharing this…this _theory_ with me. To make me question my father’s honour?”

“No, no… Certainly not,” Lady Olenna said, her tone gentle, appeasing. She gave him another sorrowful, compassionate look. “Merely to prove that…sometimes it is not so clear, what the _honourable_ thing is.”

“From a young age I have always dreaded that I may father a bastard,” Jon said, frowning. “I know what its life would be. I promised myself I never would inflict that life on an innocent.”

“Your child by Alynore would not be a bastard; they would be heir to Highgarden,” Lady Olenna said stoutly. “More to the point, the child would be passed off as my grandson Willas’. Or would you risk the child’s life by blabbing the truth?”

“I would not. But who’s to say Lord Varys won’t get wind of the truth and tell anyone who’d love to rip the rose-garden from the Reach for good?” Jon asked, frowning.

“Oh, the Spider. Do you really think he would tell? Under House Tyrell, the Reach has become peaceful and prosperous, a hub of culture and arts, theatre and music unknown to the rest of the continent,” Lady Olenna said, waving a hand. “To preserve that prosperity…do you think the Spider would risk such information getting abroad?”

“He could still tell the Queen.” Lady Olenna narrowed her eyes, her expression almost dismissive. “I’m not deaf to rumour, or blind to what I see before my eyes: I know the Queen desires me as a lover. How do you think she would react, to know that I reject her, and yet bed one of her ladies?”

“Lord Varys possesses that unique quality…of _tact_ ,” Lady Olenna mused. “What benefit could there be in telling the Queen, when the inevitable backlash would have lasting consequences on any potential alliances… I know that the Spider often seeks you out. In the weeks since you have been on Dragonstone, how would you describe the changes in his attitudes toward the Queen?”

“I’d describe him as disillusioned,” Jon said honestly, and Lady Olenna nodded.

“Very astute. Never meet one’s heroes, Your Grace,” Lady Olenna advised, and Jon thought inexplicably of the Halfhand. “From half a world away, pretty songs reached the Spider…and he was lulled by them, to be sure, drawn out of his web… Only to be met with the reality of a spoiled, arrogant girl with no traces of diplomatic agility, an overzealous opportunist who became little more than a warlord who has convinced herself she is a liberator, a creature who thinks herself closer to a god than a girl, and beholden to now laws but those of her own making… She fancies herself rightful sovereign of Westeros, based on her name, the power of her dragons, and a failed experiment in a city-state she overturned in an afternoon, and which she abandoned in economic crisis and civil war when she lost interest in the arduous everyday of ruling…”

“It’s dangerous for you to speak so candidly. Why tell me this?”

“I thought an alliance worth it to see Cersei dragged from the Throne Room to be butchered,” Lady Olenna said sharply. She sighed, settling back against her pillows. “For being so unwise as to pursue _vengeance_ , I paid the price with what remained of my family… I will not deny, I need allies still to reclaim Highgarden. House Redwyne itself will not suffice, and I have made offers of friendship with Dornish lords bordering the Reach - the lands owned by the bannermen who betrayed us… But, like dear Lord Varys, I worry for the future of Westeros. The Queen is _rigid_ in her belief that everything she thinks and feels and does is _right_ , and _good_ …even as she commits acts reminiscent of her father’s unyielding sadism… Her messianic belief in her own mythology is perhaps even stronger than the fanaticism exhibited by her followers. To believe that she alone is right…to be so unwise that she will not compromise… To deny you _aid_ without payment, all while claiming that she has come to Westeros to save its people... It speaks to her true intent, no matter how many pretty speeches she gives about freedom…”

“She’s always gotten exactly what she’s wished,” Jon said quietly. “I’m afraid that Westeros will be no different. The moment she realises she’s neither wanted nor adored…when someone intimates that she is _wrong_ to invade Westeros…that there was just cause for overthrowing her father… With her dragons, and her temper…”

“Yes,” Lady Olenna agreed, not needing Jon to spell it out for her.

“She’ll burn what does not bend to her will,” Jon muttered, and Lady Olenna nodded.

Hadn’t she done so, in the past, all throughout Slavers’ Bay? Her followers delighted in telling the stories of how she had overthrown their cities, and crucified and burned the nobles, liberating the slaves. Crucified and burned…because they would not yield to her.

To Jon, she did not sound a liberator.

She was a warlord, leaving unthinking destruction in her wake, as terrible as any highborn of Westeros leading their men to battle for their own vanity.

And the arrogant way she had told her Council that she would use Meereen as _experience_ of ruling, before she turned her gaze westward to conquer the Seven Kingdoms…

The more Jon learned of Daenerys Targaryen, the less respect he had for her.

“Until then… I will do what I must to protect the few rosebuds that remain,” Lady Olenna sighed, looking suddenly tired.

Jon smiled sadly, thinking of home. “There are some hardy roses that bloom even in the heart of winter,” he said softly, and Lady Olenna smiled almost wistfully. “Maester Luwin used to say that ‘the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all’. He used to say it of my sister Larra…now I know it describes Sansa, too… Lady Alynore has it in her to flourish in spite of everything.”

“I am glad that you were so quick to appreciate her worth,” Lady Olenna sighed. “I let her down.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. And I will continue to do so, while I lie here slowly dying, frail and useless.”

“You’re not useless, and you certainly do not seem frail,” Jon said, and Lady Olenna’s lips twitch. “I know I’m not your king, Lady Olenna…but I forbid you to die.”

“Give me a great-grandchild to look forward to, and I just may yet obey you, Your Grace.”


	24. He Never Liked It

**Valyrian Steel**

_24_

_He Never Liked It_

* * *

The courtyard was eerily quiet. Since her return, she had not known the castle to be still, even during the Hour of the Wolf. And yet, today, as fat snowdrops whirled idly on a gentle breeze, the ominous silence chilled her to the bone.

Two guards led her, holding flickering torches aloft. It was not yet near sundown, and yet it was necessary to light the torches, especially within the halls of the castle; angry black clouds threatened to consume the fluffy white expanse that brought the snows, foretelling a worse storm. Light from torches held by more soldiers, and braziers in the courtyard and the gallery high above, gilded everything, from the soldiers’ helmets to the ancestral rune-engraved armour of Yohn Royce, the ragged furs of a few curious smallfolk, and the banners of the Northmen. Lady Mormont’s black sharp new leather armour gleamed; her scowl was heavy, and a few of the other bannermen shifted uneasily as Larra was led into the centre of the courtyard.

Before her, Sansa’s red hair glowed a deep and vibrant copper in the firelight, which picked out the blue of her eyes and cast shadows across her beautiful face. The red direwolf that had toyed with Larra’s boot in the makeshift hut beyond the Wall so many weeks ago rested beside Sansa, ears pricked, panting, and yawned widely, exposing her terrible white fangs. Beside her, Brandon sat in his chair, looking complacent and calm, his gloved hands folded in his lap.

The guards stopped. Larra tucked her chin down, glancing around, feeling the hostility emanating in waves from the Northmen and Valemen gathered in a U-shape around the courtyard, all facing Sansa and Brandon - penning her in. All of them - the Northmen who had already arrived at Winterfell to fight through the storm with them; the Valeman who had remained after the Battle of the Bastards out of dread of Littlefinger more than loyalty to Sansa, and a sense of honour to defeat the enemy Jon warned them of. A few of Jon’s commanders among the Free Folk lingered, curious. They were all gathered - all silent, and solemn.

Another guard stepped forward. Careful of where he put his hands, he unbuckled the belts strapping her new dagger and the hunting-knife Robb had given her around her narrow waist. The Valyrian steel dagger, he gave to Sansa, the hunting-knife to Lady Brienne, who stood guard just behind Sansa, armoured and armed and grim.

Larra did not resist as she was relieved of Dark Sister, watching grimly as the ancient Valyrian sword was handed to Lord Royce.

She turned and sighed, gazing mournfully at Sansa. “You’ve made your choice, then.”

“There was no choice,” Sansa said, her voice crisp. She lowered her eyes demurely, but seemed to steel herself, and gazed at Larra. _You owe it to them to look them in the eye_ … “Honour demands I must act to defend my family from those who would harm us. I must protect my people from those who would betray us.”

“Nasty business,” Larra said offhandedly, seemingly unconcerned that she was penned in, defenceless, friendless. She fixed Sansa with a sharp look. “Shall we get it over with?”

“Yes, I think so…” Sansa nodded, her breath pluming before her as she sighed, and cleared her throat uncomfortably. Her voice was clear, and cut through the silence like a Valyrian steel blade. “You stand accused of treason. You stand accused of murder. How do you answer these charges…Lord Baelish?”

The dark little man stood leaning indolently against a direwolf statue by one of the gates - which was closed, and guarded. And he looked utterly taken-aback to be addressed by Sansa, her hair shimmering like a long copper curtain as she turned to stare at him.

Larra followed her gaze, to find the man looking momentarily startled, confused.

The men and women gathered in the courtyard seemed to harden in that moment, as Littlefinger blinked in confusion, thinking quickly. Their gazes lingered on him, steel and venom. Lord Royce’s scowl deepened; Lady Mormont’s eyes narrowed. Lord Manderly and Crowsfood Umber both glowered, their hands twitching for the weapons strapped to them. Lady Karstark glanced from Littlefinger to Sansa, a faint frown on her face, before exchanging a look with Little Jon Umber, who stood scowling with his arms folded over his chest, muttering under his breath to Ragnar, who looked for a second murderous - and then relieved, his gaze flitting to Larra: He sagged with relief, and smiled softly at her.

A shadow moved, and the tremendous direwolf Last Shadow padded through the crowds, taller than any pony, enormous, vicious, and bumped gently against Larra, radiating heat, before licking her bare palm, exposing her fangs at Littlefinger in silent warning as her eyes glittered in the firelight.

“My sister has addressed you, my lord,” Larra said softly, absently running her fingers through Shadow’s thick pelt.

Littlefinger frowned, his eyes turning shrewd, calculating - but he looked off-kilter, as if he had suddenly found himself on uncertain footing, and had no idea how it had happened.

“Lady Sansa, forgive me…” he lisped. He never called her Lady Stark, never acknowledged that she, and not Brandon in his wheeled chair, was the only true heir to Winterfell. “I’m a bit confused.”

“It is rather a lot to contemplate, I know. So many plots and betrayals, it must be a constant struggle to keep track of them all,” Sansa said, her voice cool. “I’ll make it simple for you. You murdered my aunt, Lysa Arryn. You pushed her through the Moon-Door at the Eyrie and watched her fall to her death, do you deny it?”

Littlefinger gazed at Sansa, thinking quickly. His voice was soft, as he said, “I did it to protect you.”

“You did it to take power in the Vale from my cousin and his true protectors,” Sansa said sharply, and the Valemen stirred. “Before that, you conspired to assassinate King Joffrey, using the Strangler, smuggled into the royal wedding on a necklace you planted on _me_. Years ago, you conspired with Lysa to poison her husband, the Hand of the King Jon Arryn, when he had discovered the truth about Cersei Lannister’s children, bastards conceived of incest with her twin-brother Ser Jaime Lannister. You gave Lysa Tears of Lys to poison Jon Arryn, do you deny it?”

Another hesitation, thinking. “Whatever your aunt might have told you, she was a troubled woman.”

“She was utterly in thrall to you, as you well knew. She poisoned Jon Arryn for you, because you told her to, tempting her with the promise of marriage if she were free of him. Something she had wanted since she was a girl, and of which you had long taken advantage of,” Sansa said coldly. “You had her write a letter to my mother, telling her it was the Lannisters who had conspired to kill her husband, when really it was you. The conflict between the Starks and Lannisters, it was _you_ who started it as part of your ambitious plan to claim the Iron Throne for yourself, do you deny it?”

“I know of no such letter.”

“Convenient that Lysa wrote to her sister to burn it, lest it fall into the wrong hands and her head - and that of her child - end up on spikes before the Red Keep,” Sansa said, glaring at Littlefinger. “But it was my father’s head that ended up there, after you helped him discover Robert Baratheon’s bastards as evidence against the Queen’s treason. You let the Lord Hand learn just enough to be dangerous - and you _conspired_ with Cersei Lannister and her bastard son Joffrey to betray Lord Stark before the truth could come to light. Thanks to your treachery, Lord Eddard Stark was imprisoned and later executed on false charges of treason, _do you deny it_?”

“I deny it!” Littlefinger called, striding into the centre of the courtyard, the wings of his coat flaring as he turned, attempting to find a friendly face, an ally to vouch for him. None presented themselves. He was met by a wall of ice. “None of you were there to see what happened! None of you knows the truth.”

“You held a knife to his throat,” said a soft voice, silky and ancient with a hint of vulnerability. Bran’s eyes glittered in the torchlight like the eyes of a raven. “You said…‘I did warn you not to trust me’.”

Littlefinger stared back at Bran, unable to show just how unnerved he was.

It was not the first time the Three-Eyed Raven had frightened the mockingbird.

Last Shadow started to growl, low and soft and spine-tingling in the silence. Larra stroked her ears, and they twitched; Shadow fidgeted, then chuffed indignantly, glancing up at her. She settled, and the red wolf by Sansa cocked her head, emulating her leader.

“When my mother journeyed to King’s Landing, following the attack on her son’s life with this blade, you told her it belonged to Tyrion Lannister,” Sansa said, holding aloft the Valyrian steel blade so that the dragonbone hilt was clearly visible, the cruel smoke-over-silver blade gleaming. “Another lie. It is a Targaryen relic, one among many in the royal armoury… It was the Queen’s bastard Joffrey who paid a cutthroat to kill Bran… But you knew exactly what my mother wanted to hear, after having Lysa send that letter, to plant doubt and suspicion about the Lannisters…”

Littlefinger surged toward Sansa: The red direwolf growled, low and lethal, exposing her fangs. She was smaller and younger than Shadow but no less dangerous. Lady Brienne stepped forward, hand on the hilt of Oathkeeper, her expression cold and dangerous. Littlefinger stopped, eyeing her warily. He beseeched Sansa, “Lady Sansa, I’ve known you since you were a girl. I’ve protected you -“

“ _Protected_ me? By selling me to the Boltons?” Sansa snapped, and the red wolf snapped her jaws, causing Littlefinger to jump back.

He flinched. “If we could speak alone… I can explain everything…”

Sansa’s face became cold and perfect as carved marble. Her dainty lips flicked up in the corners, her smile lethal, ironic, and did nothing to soften the ice in her hard blue eyes. She stepped forward, around Lady Brienne, the folds of her heavy cloak whispering against the snow on the ground, the firelight gleaming against the leather she used to strap herself into her gowns and protect herself from any kind of contact. Littlefinger closed his eyes as she started to speak, as he realised…he had overplayed his hand - underestimated his apprentice: “Sometimes, when I’m trying to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game… I assume the worst… What’s the worst reason you have for turning me against my sister? That’s what you do, isn’t it? What you’ve always done. Turn family against family, turn sister against sister. That’s what you did to my mother and Aunt Lysa, that’s what you tried to do _us_.”

Sansa finally looked at Larra, who fell into place, close enough to Lord Baelish to see the growing panic bubbling up behind his intelligent eyes.

Had he been less exultant that the pieces were falling into place exactly as he had planned, again, and paid more attention to the _details_ , he might have noticed. Might have been forewarned.

Larra wore new clothing.

A split-skirt of thick dark wool, the hems falling neatly above her ankles, fine leather boots and a long undershirt of brownish-black linen beneath a fine leather tunic to her elbows. Over the leather tunic, a thick, high-necked garnet-red tunic of silk over wool with wide sleeves to just above the elbows, the sleeves embroidered intricately with snow-bitten weirwood leaves, the high neck sewn with two direwolf heads meeting nose-to-nose, worn beneath an armoured leather bodice fitted almost like a corset, the leather dyed closer to a warm black than brown in colour, sewn like a brigandine with small panels of steel concealed beneath the intricately embossed leather, the centre panel, with a V neckline to accommodate for dressing, shimmered curiously in the torchlight as the fire reflected off thousands of tiny obsidian rings, embroidered with steel-wire and leather cord into the shape of two rearing direwolves, nose to nose, not snarling aggressively but rather nuzzling each other lovingly, protectively. The firelight turned the direwolves onyx, or gleaming copper, or bright, hot white by turns. The shoulders shimmered, too, like liquid obsidian dripping over the garnet-red sleeves of the tunic, hundreds more rings of obsidian stitched together, protecting her shoulders and upper-arms. Steel-reinforced leather gauntlets finely embossed with weirwood trees protected her lower-arms, and her belts had been studded with small direwolf-heads.

Some might look at Larra’s new armoured bodice and obsidian ring-mail, and assume the black was for her brother, sworn to the Night’s Watch, or for her direwolf, night-black and swift as shadows, that the garnet-red was a nod to the weirwood under which she had dwelled in safety for so long, and with which her brother was inextricably linked, or for the blood that had been spilled in her dedication to protecting her family. All would be true.

Sansa had chosen the deep, earthy jewel-red, and a rich treacle brown so dark it was near-black, to honour all of those things: But she had also chosen the colours to honour Rhaegar.

The sigil of her mother’s House, the House of the man who had raised and protected her, and the colours of her father’s House. Allowing Larra to embrace both facets of her true identity, the daughter of Stark and Targaryen, of ice and fire.

Sansa had created every piece with meticulous attention to even the smallest detail.

She had embroidered the tunic herself, adding a snarling direwolf head over the breast, only visible when the armoured bodice was removed. Obsidian rings, to protect her sister’s heart from a White Walker’s blade of ice.

Sansa had poured her love for her sister into every stitch.

Had sent Lady Brienne to Larra with the clothing mere hours ago, stitched by her own sister’s hands, bequeathing her the sigil so long denied her. Declaring Larra’s heritage, and Sansa’s love, for all to see, if they but looked.

Littlefinger hadn’t paid attention. Should have recognised the stitching on the sleeves of Larra’s tunic, should have thought long and hard about why Sansa would have spent so many hours meticulously stitching clothing for the sister she was about to betray.

He should have realised, the moment Larra stepped into the courtyard, that Sansa, with her direwolf-clasped shadowcat-fur cloak and the two snarling direwolves - one snow-white and one of obsidian - racing across the black velvet over her breasts, and Larra, with two direwolves nuzzling lovingly on her armoured bodice, and Brandon, the clasps of his fur-trimmed gown each a direwolf-head, were a family _united_.

He should have realised the trap had been baited, not for Larra…but for him.

Wolves surrounding their prey, ready for the kill.

Larra tilted her head to observe the mockingbird panicking in the snow.

“We are not gaping trout to be hooked on a line, Lord Baelish,” she said calmly, and the slender man winced, glancing quickly away from her, as if suddenly frightened of her gentleness. “We are she-wolves of Winterfell. To return home, we have defeated far worse than you.”

“Sansa, _please_ …”

“I’m a slow learner, it’s true,” Sansa sighed. “But I learn.”

“Give me a chance to defend myself,” Littlefinger begged. “I deserve that.”

Sansa said nothing, only gazed unerringly at the trapped bird unable to take wing, his long sleeves billowed as he whirled toward Lord Royce, still propping Dark Sister up in the snow, resting his clasped hands on the ruby-inlaid hilt. He glowered at Littlefinger, who was puffing up, fluffing his feathers, aware he was under threat, doing his utmost to appear bigger, more powerful.

“I am Lord Protector of the Vale and I command you to escort me safely back to the Eyrie.”

“ _I think not_.”

Littlefinger deflated, blinking dazedly. He turned to Sansa, beseeching.

“Sansa, please - I loved your mother since the time I was a boy,” he implored.

“And yet you betrayed her.”

“I loved you…more than anyone,” he whimpered.

“And yet, you betrayed _me_ …” Sansa said sadly, her gaze steady as she stared down Littlefinger. Her breath plumed in front of her, catching in the firelight, as she sighed. “When you brought me back to Winterfell to sell me to the Boltons to be brutalised, you told me there is no justice in the world, not unless we make it,” she said, and again, Littlefinger flinched; others murmured, a soft hiss carried on the winds, and, from somewhere beyond the castle walls…direwolves started howling to the moon. Their howls were blood-curdling, to those who did not know the beauty of wolves singing to one another. Littlefinger jumped, and others gazed warily around them, eyeing the gates, as if unnerved, thinking that perhaps the wolves of winter would snarl and snap and leap into the courtyard to join their sisters at a summons from the she-wolves of Winterfell.

“I thank you for your tutelage, Lord Baelish. I shall never forget your lessons.”

Littlefinger gaped, his eyes widening, as Sansa drew herself up. The firelight gleamed off her hair, off the twin wolves glimmering across her breasts, off the dragonbone hilt of the silver-and-smoke Valyrian steel dagger that had created such tragedy for their family.

“In the name of Jon Snow, King in the North, I, Sansa Stark, Castellan of Winterfell and Lady Regent of the North, find you guilty of conspiracy, of treason, of murder and regicide,” Sansa said, her voice clear and strong. “In the name of House Stark and of my King, I sentence you to die.”

Littlefinger’s eyes popped, his lips parted, and he stood gaping, like the trout he had tickled and manipulated and battered against the rocks so easily.

Larra’s glare was ice-cold and fierce: Littlefinger blinked quickly, wincing and shrinking away from her, though she stood quite still. Power, menace radiated from her, but when she spoke, Larra was deceptively calm, polite. He closed his eyes, realising his mistake, when she said, “ _When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives_.”

She strode to Lord Royce, who bowed solemnly, and offered the sheath of Dark Sister: Larra gripped the hilt, and unsheathed the lethal blade. The rippled silver-and-smoke blade gleamed in the torchlight, eerily entrancing, and she turned back to Littlefinger, who eyed the blade with true panic settling in.

“You should have realised, Petyr,” she said softly, and he cringed regretfully as she said, “we would rather die than betray one another…” She nodded to two guards, who strode forward, taking hold of his arms, guiding him to his knees. A block was placed before him, to lean over. His breath plumed before him, thick and fast as he started to hyperventilate in his fear.

Larra paused, and took a knee before him, to look into his face. “Do you have any last words?”

Littlefinger sniffed, his eyes glittering, as he glanced across the courtyard, where Sansa stared stonily back at him, unmoved by his terror.

“I played well,” Lord Petyr Baelish muttered, and Larra nodded, almost to herself.

She gave him a sharp and dangerous look, her tone quiet but deeply threatening, as she warned him, “Now die well.”

 _For her sake_ , Larra thought, casting one last glance at her sister, before she sighed deeply, eyed Littlefinger’s exposed neck…and swung Dark Sister through the darkness.

A swish that was delicate, almost imperceptible. A gruesome squelch and a decisive thud.

A sudden silence, as the direwolves fell silent.

Blood oozed sluggishly from her blade, already starting to freeze in the cold, as the snow stopped falling, and the sky darkened near-black, the clouds threatening thunder, heavy with hail.

“Burn his body,” she said quietly, and everyone in the courtyard heard her, though she spoke barely above a murmur. “Scatter his ashes beyond the sept.”

She did not wait to see the orders carried out, or the body parts gathered up and carried away. Larra turned and carried Dark Sister to one of the wooden gates into the godswood, trudged through the snow, and sank down beneath the weirwood, as she had seen Father do so many times.

 _Feeding the tree_ , she thought, as Littlefinger’s blood dripped onto the snow, a jarring contrast. She used handfuls of snow to wash the blood away, then pulled out an oiled suede cloth to polish the blade to a high shine. The moon had already risen, a half-crescent, but shy tonight, hiding behind the sea of sinister clouds. The soft crunch of snow compacting underfoot alerted her to Sansa’s approach: no-one else would dare disturb her under the heart-tree.

“How many times did we find Father sitting there, cleansing Ice?” Sansa said sadly, tucking her heavy cloak around her as she sat down beside Larra on one of the ancient, gnarled roots. “I found Jon here, after the Battle of the Bastards… I came here, after the hounds… I never truly knew what it meant, why Father came here…”

Larra finished polishing the blade, and carefully sheathed it, propping it beside her. “How do you feel?”

“It’s a strange thing, to take a man’s life,” Sansa murmured, hugging her knees. “You gave him a clean death.”

“For your sake, I’m glad he died well,” Larra said quietly. She leaned over, and kissed Sansa’s cheek, stroking a hand over her long, soft hair. “You did well.”

“I did my duty…but I hated it,” Sansa confessed on a whisper, her eyes shining as she glanced at Larra.

“Good.”

“Father never liked it… Hm.”

“What?”

“You remember I told you about Sandor Clegane, the night of the Blackwater? He was covered in gore, and I was frightened of him. He knew it. ‘ _Your father was a killer’_ , he told me ‘ _Your brother is a killer. Your sons will be killers someday. The world is built by killers. So you’d better get used to looking at them_ ’… He was right, of course…but how could he have known about my sisters then? About me? Two men have died directly at my word, if not my sword.”

“Two men who did far worse to you,” Larra reminded her gently, not that Sansa would ever need reminding. She may wear Ghost upon her breast, but Sansa was still strapped in her leather gear, protecting herself from the slightest touch, even affectionate. She was warming to Larra, in the privacy of the solar, but it would take years before she would be comfortably being physically affectionate again. She had simply endured too much hurt. “I have killed countless wights, and one White Walker… I have killed twelve men, including the three Ironborn who would have raped and mutilated me… I remember every single kill. I also know that if I hadn’t, I would not be alive now. Bran would not be alive… There was some truth in what Littlefinger intimated about Rickon. That my choice led to his death.”

“You cannot listen to anything Littlefinger said.”

“He was right, Sansa, that’s why it made such a dangerous weapon against me,” Larra murmured, sniffing. “I _chose_ Bran. And that fills me with shame. I chose one brother over the other.”

“You chose one to save both,” Sansa said, her voice gentle, reasonable. “Rickon would never have survived the True North - not the little boy I remember. You would have failed, trying to gentle his nature, and it would have cost you your lives. You couldn’t have saved both. Just like you could never have reclaimed this castle from the Ironborn, not without risking the lives of the smallfolk - and you would never have allowed them to die for nothing. I’ve read your cyvasse campaign strategies.”

“It’s one thing to play at cyvasse and another to implement strategy in real life…” Larra said dazedly. “There’s no accounting for how emotion outweighs pragmatism.”

“If you could go back…and you knew what was going to happen…what would you do?” Sansa asked curiously.

“What would you do?” Larra asked.

“Tell Robb not to raise the banners; Father was as good as dead the moment that boar gored King Robert. I would risk everything to tell Robb to declare independence - and fiercely guard it from anyone who tried to take it from the North again, and to never think of his sisters,” Sansa said, fierce and wise. “To be as ruthless and cold as our ancestors had to be.”

Larra sighed, and watched Last Shadow and the red wolf approaching quietly, curling up together at the base of a tree.

“If I could go back…and knew what was to happen… I wouldn’t change a single thing,” Larra said, holding Sansa’s eye sombrely. “That’s the horrifying truth. Father…Robb…Rickon… I know what came after. I know what’s still to come. And where we are is where we were always meant to be.” She sighed, gazing up; in the dwindling twilight, the blood-red weirwood leaves were eerily vibrant. She thought of Lord Bloodraven, of the Children… “There’s a _reason_ …we were always meant to be here. To _fight_. Perhaps to _live_. And that _is_ an encouraging thought.”

More footsteps; the direwolves glanced up, but lolled back against the snow, yawning carelessly.

Lord Royce’s armour gleamed in the light of torches held by knights of the Vale. He bowed low to Larra, and Sansa, and told them, “The thing was done well, my ladies.”

“It was a thing we took no pleasure in,” Sansa said.

“No indeed, but your Father would have been proud nonetheless,” Lord Royce said. “The Northmen live by the old ways, as he always said. You got the better of a dangerous man who would have done his utmost to harm you, as he already has…” His gaze lingered briefly on Sansa, who remained on weirwood root even as Larra stood, too accustomed to rising in the presence of her betters. “I speak for all the Lords of the Vale, and the Lord Protectors of House Arryn and the Eyrie, when I say the Vale owes House Stark a great debt. You have avenged Lord Arryn, a man we respected and followed through wartime and together enjoyed peace. You avenged his wife. For that, we are utterly grateful.”

“You will tell my cousin the truth of things?” Sansa asked hesitantly. “He had great love for Lord Baelish.”

“The boy will come to learn the truth, my lady, but not for a while yet,” Lord Royce said. “We have discussed it amongst ourselves: In light of everything, the Lords Protector of the Vale hope to forge a lasting alliance between the Eyrie and House Stark. It began with the Battle of the Bastards; it shall not end before the battle through the Long Night.”

“You will stay and fight?” Larra asked breathlessly, something fluttering in her chest. It had always been one of the risks they had calculated, her and Sansa, that without Littlefinger pulling strings, the Valemen would return to their mountain-halls.

“I grew up with your father,” Lord Royce said stoutly. “I know full well, observing him these months, that Ned Stark’s quality has passed to his son. I have known too many soldiers to believe your brother is either a liar or a madman. The Vale will stand beside the Northmen against the White Walkers, as our ancestors the First Men did so many ages ago. We should be ashamed to turn tail and flee back to the mountains and still call ourselves knights of the realm.”

“Thank you, Lord Royce,” Larra said earnestly, and Sansa gave him a serene, beautiful smile.

He gave them a deep bow: Both women responded with an elegant curtsy.

“There is one last thing, my ladies… The first shipment of obsidian has arrived from Dragonstone. The blacksmiths are rather at a loss what to do with it.”

Belting her sword around her waist, Larra’s solemn face melted into a smile, her eyes vibrant in the torchlight.

“Finally!” she smiled. “You can finally put me to good use.”

“Pardon?” Sansa blurted, her eyelashes fluttering.

“Dancing wasn’t the _only_ lesson the Children gave me.”

* * *

“You’re certain this is what you want?” he asked, his voice sounding too loud in the empty chamber. A fire crackled in the hearth, shedding warm golden light over everything. “I don’t want you to regret it.”

“There are many things I know I’ll regret for the rest of my life,” Alynore said softly, her smile desperately sad. It gentled, became soft, and her eyes seemed to radiate their own inner-light as she gazed up at Jon. “You will not be one of them… Every fibre of my being tells me that I can trust you. Not just…to treat me with kindness and respect… You’re a man of honour: You could never be forced or coerced into doing anything that might risk your child’s life, even if no-one knows the chid is yours… And you’re too cautious, and have no political ambition beyond protecting your people; you would not use the child - our child - as leverage… You’re grim, and honourable, and unselfish. And for all those reasons, I wanted it to be you.”

He was humbled by what she had said.

“Why ask me, to give you a child?” Jon asked, something that had been on his mind ever since she had proposed the idea to him. “Why not just climb into my bed?”

“And have you find out after the fact that that is why I slept with you, for your seed alone? I couldn’t do that to you,” Alynore said, and warmth coloured her cheeks delicate pink, her eyelashes fluttering, her expression turning bashful. “And I… I never have before.” In her nightgown and robe, she looked ethereally lovely, and Jon admitted it, he was entranced by her loveliness. There was a strength and a vulnerability to her that was as heartening as it was refreshing.

There was nothing shy about her going up on her tiptoes, pressing her lips against his. He moaned softly, surprised, but found himself relaxing into the kiss as Alynore teased and dominated… He panted as they broke apart, gently squeezing her waist, surprised. She dimpled sweetly, shyly asking, “Did you think I’d never been kissed?”

“I’d hoped not, for your sake.”

She smiled, and Jon cradled her slender throat in his hand, leaning down to snare her lips, kissing her slowly, fiercely, consuming her, until she was panting in his arms, her knees weak, her hands tugging at his undershirt. Hand tangled in her hair, she gasped softly as he first delicately kissed and then teased his tongue against her lower-lip, and held her close against him, consuming each other, embers sparking to an inferno in his blood, desire warring with desperation for contact, for intimacy…

She broke away, tugging his undershirt over his head, leaving him in his boots and breeches.

She gasped, her eyes widening in horror, hand fluttering to her mouth, one to his chest, just barely catching herself from tracing the deep, wicked scars slashing his flesh.

Jon froze.

He had forgotten them. They gave him no pain.

But he clenched his jaw and felt a flush of something…something like humiliation - because there they were, irrefutable signs that he had been utterly betrayed by those he led. The reminder that those he had trusted to do what was right, no matter their personal feelings, had used his few weaknesses - Benjen’s fate - against him in a conspiracy to assassinate him.

He gulped down a breath, forced a grim smile onto his face. “You see…there’s nothing you can show me that you should ever feel embarrassed about.”

She had been so shy when he arrived, her hands shaking, breaths coming quick, even though he could tell by looking at her that she had spent a long time preparing for his visit, her nightgown and robe simple, her hair brushed out and gleaming. She had never had a man before, he had already guessed that much; she had just confirmed it.

And she had been embarrassed about taking her clothes off in front of him, the first man to ever see her naked.

“There are so many,” she whispered, her eyes still wide. Finally she reached out, her eyelashes flickering gold in the candlelight, as she traced the curved scar… “They _twisted_ the blade…”

“Aye,” Jon murmured, and Alynore leaned forward, pressing her lips to the tough, puckered skin. One by one, each scar was caressed by the lightest of kisses from her soft lips, down his chest. He inhaled sharply, finding himself swaying, and gripped the bed-post, as she pressed a gentle kiss over his hip, where the skin was unblemished but incredibly sensitive…

He curled a finger under her chin, drawing her back up, and claimed her lips with an intense kiss that left them both breathless and lightheaded.

She gazed up at him, lightly panting, lips swollen, cheeks flushed delicately, her eyes heated with desire. Her eyes dipped to his breeches. Jon smiled, and leaned in to kiss her gently, sensing her nervousness; her palms were soft, warm, as they rested on his waist, and shook only slightly as they went for the laces of his breeches. She only got as far as loosening the laces, before her nerve failed her; Jon just hugged her closer, deepening the kiss, until she was all but collapsed against him, her hand tangled in his hair, her fingertips biting into his bare shoulder, and he reached for the delicate clasp closing her robe, pushing the silk from her shoulders, so that it fell heavily to the floor at their feet.

“Climb onto the bed,” he told her hoarsely, and Alynore nodded, swallowing, and climbed onto the bed, the quilts and furs already turned down. She knelt on the mattress, watching him, the firelight glowing through the thin muslin and highlighting every tempting curve, as he tugged off his boots with a groan, and climbed onto the bed, kneeling before her. She was still nervous; he wouldn’t take off his breeches until she was ready. Her breath feathered across his face as she gazed up at him, eyes wide, lips swollen, and he cradled her face in his hands, mesmerised by her strength and daintiness, by the desire glowing in her eyes and the faint tremor in her fingers as she reached out to trace her fingertips over his arms, his shoulders, over his chest.

He ran his hands heavily, from her shoulders to her knees, the first caress through the muslin; then reached for the hem of the nightgown, and lifted it over her head, leaving her naked. The room was hot; but her dainty apricot-pink nipples hardened under his gaze, begging to be sucked. He groaned softly, unable to stop himself, and leaned in to capture Alynore with a deep, probing kiss as he raised his hands to cup and gently knead her pretty little breasts. She gasped against his lips, shivering, and gripped the waist of his breeches, meeting his fierce kiss.

 _Not yet_ , he thought, as she tugged insistently, leaning away to gaze fiercely into his eyes, telling him without words what she wanted. He guided her to her back, relaxing against the pillows, and moaned softly as he nestled between her thighs, to trace kisses on the tip of her nose, along her jaw, down her throat, to suck on her collarbones, and finally, to lick and suckle her breasts, until she was gasping and grinning and moaning as she writhed, holding his head captive to her chest, her fingers tangled in his hair, and he tenderly touched the tiny rosebud between her thighs.

Shocked, she gasped; her first touch from a man, perhaps at all. Slow, and soft, Jon continued to suckle and tease her nipples with his tongue and his teeth, cupping her breasts with his free hand, leaning up to give her long, slow kisses in time with each pass of his fingertip.

“ _Jon_!” she gasped, blinking dazedly, and he grinned, and placed a delicate line of kisses from nose to navel, and, lowering himself until he rested between her thighs, she gasped and flushed hotly and writhed away, trying to clamp her thighs together - he arched an eyebrow, spreading his calloused palms on her soft thighs, and lowered his mouth to her.

“ _Oh_!” she gasped in surprise, moaning, and she sighed, her legs sprawled wantonly, her body relaxing utterly. And Jon was relentless, using his tongue and his teeth and his fingers, coaxing her to an inferno, until her thighs were shaking and her back was arched and Alynore had forgotten her shyness, lost to everything but the sensation of Jon between her thighs - and then, not even him: Just the onslaught of feeling he created in her, seizing her, overwhelming her, freeing her of everything but an exquisite agony that brought utter peace and contentment, even if only for a few unending moments as she lay, flushed with pleasure, a slow smile curling her lips.

She was utterly lovely to behold.

He wiped his mouth on his arm, and sighed, satisfied, disentangling himself from her legs, to stretch out beside her. She radiated heat, her skin silky soft and delicately fragrant, tiny beads of sweat shimmering in the firelight, her hair glowing… _Lovely_ , he thought, startled that for a moment her hair seemed almost red.

After a moment, Alynore smiled richly, coming back to herself, and sighed, turning her head to him, her smile deeply affectionate, and he chuckled softly to himself, glad.

“I didn’t know men did that.”

“It’s my favourite thing to do,” Jon told her, and Alynore giggled softly, biting her lip.

“Then I shall let you treat yourself whenever you choose,” she said, and Jon laughed in surprise at her brazenness. He reached out, to cup her face, and tenderly draw his thumb over her nose, her lips. He leaned in, giving her a gentle kiss, and she rolled onto her side, pressing close against him, her hand going to his breeches, and he groaned as she slipped her hand inside, hesitant at first, then seeking, and finally, her eyes alight with curiosity and anticipation, started to stroke him, hard and hot and insistent against her soft palm.

“Wait…” Jon murmured, and Alynore stilled. He gave her a coaxing smile, to show she hadn’t done something wrong. “Careful,” he warned her, giving her a gentle kiss, and guided them back to the pillows, reaching down to tug his breeches off, flinging them off the bed, as Alynore rolled to her back, and he stretched out above her, pressing their hips flush together, gently rocking for a moment, and he leaned down to kiss her as her thighs tensed, and uncertainty flickered across her face at the heat and hardness of him, so unfamiliarly close to her. Panting lightly, he gazed down into her eyes, and told her, “We don’t have to… Say the word, and I’ll leave…”

Alynore gazed up at him. She licked her lips, and subtly shook her head, her eyes locked on his. “I don’t want you to leave,” she breathed, arching up to kiss him, sucking on his lower-lip, as she reached to stroke him again. He inhaled sharply, and buried his head against her neck; and she stroked him, until they were both rocking their hips, her heels digging into the mattress, and Jon reached to grasp her wrist, and pull her hand away. Levering himself over her, she wrapped her hands around his strong arms, her chest heaving as he leaned down to kiss her tenderly, catching the sharp moan and her wince as he settled himself between her thighs and thrust into her with agonising slowness. Slick though she was, he felt her tense, and gentled every movement. He reached between them, using his fingertip, and she moaned in surprise, startled, and sighed… He gentled her pain with pleasure she had never known before.

They were both panting heavily when finally, Jon pressed his forehead against her neck, and spilled deep inside of her, relief sweeping through him. He kissed her gently, and withdrew, rolling onto his side, curling her against him, his heart thundering in his ears, her pale-green gaze wide and a little bewildered, and curled an arm around her, tucking her against his side. He kissed the top of her head, stroking her long hair, and sighed, the day’s exhaustion, utterly relaxed, sweeping over him, and he sighed, his eyes heavy, Alynore soft and sweet beside him.

They dozed, Alynore’s head resting on his chest, and Jon started, a little while later, suddenly forgetting where he was, and who he was with, and why. He sighed, remembering, and relaxed against the soft mattress, stroking Alynore’s arm, her back. She turned her face to him, propping her chin against his chest.

“How do you feel?” he asked softly. The fire had burned itself out; the only source of light was the moon, its rays silvering everything they landed on.

“Sore, and strange,” Alynore answered honestly.

“Can you not sleep?”

“Thinking too much.”

“Mm,” he grunted softly.

“You sleep lightly.”

“You learn to,” Jon told her, exhausted but too engaged by the soft heat and delicate perfume of Alynore’s skin to sleep. He sighed, stretching luxuriously, and Alynore smiled softly when he asked, “What can I do, to help you gentle your mind?”

“I don’t now… Talk to me,” Alynore said, and Jon found it such a strange request, given everything, that he smiled in the darkness.

“About what?”

A soft sigh. “Have you ever been in love?” Jon’s eyes opened, staring at the canopy above them.

“Yes,” he said, and sighed grimly.

“What was she like?”

“She was fierce, and kissed by fire…and I betrayed her,” Jon said quietly. He glanced at Alynore; her face was faintly silvered by the moonlight, soft and gentle. And because they were here, and because he had never spoken of her, not to anyone, not since he had burned her body in the grove of weirwoods beyond he Wall, and because Alynore had trusted him…he told her.

He told her about Ygritte. About the Watch, the Great Ranging, Qhorin Halfhand and Mance, and climbing the Wall, his ultimate betrayal. Reaching the garrison shot through with arrows she had aimed at him - yet never struck true, in spite of her awing aim. The Battle for Castle Black. Her dying in his arms, her heart pierced by an arrow. _You remember that cave_ …

Tenderly, Alynore leaned forward and kissed Jon’s chest. It was such an intimate gesture, not romantic but something deeper. “If she truly loved you for all that you are, she would have known, deep down in her heart, that you could never truly lose yourself, not even for her.”

“I was hers, and she was mine…and we _lived_ …” Jon said, his voice agonised and unfamiliar to his own ears. “I’d never felt so _alive_ as when I was with her. She fought by my side…teased and taunted me…she made me laugh. She was ferocious and sharp and flirtatious… And she died for nothing.”

“You saved her people.”

“Not nearly enough of them,” Jon said, with quiet ferocity. _Not nearly enough of them_. Alynore sighed, propping herself up on her elbow. She traced her fingertips down his chest, pausing at every scar.

“You wondered why it was you I asked to father a child…” she said quietly. “One of the reasons…if my child inherits even half your grit and goodness, I know I shall truly have reason to be proud of them…” Jon sighed grimly, and captured her face tenderly in his hands. He flitted his gaze over her face, sleepy and relaxed, and leaned in to kiss her; he rolled them over, and tasted Alynore’s gasp on his lips as she felt him. “Again?”

“My lady, I’ve a job to do,” he said, and Alynore laughed, biting her lip.

“And you always do your duty,” she said, with mock sombreness, and Jon leaned down to nip at her lower-lip.

“If you’re too sore…”

“I’m not,” she murmured against his lips. It was gentle and slow and savouring, with ardent gazes broken by tender kisses. After, Alynore curled up against Jon again, tracing his scars with her fingertip, and she asked sleepily, “All the horror you have seen...would you do it all again?”

“There was a time I thought not… When I learned Robb had called the banners… After I betrayed the wildlings, I heard what happened at the Red Wedding,” Jon told her, his eyes closed, heavy, his body relaxed. Strange that he could talk about Ygritte, and Robb, without his body locking with tension, without simmering, icy rage or utter despondence consuming him. “I knew if I’d gone after him…deserted the Night’s Watch…I never would have been there when the wight attacked, when Lord Commander Mormont led the Great Ranging… I never would have _seen_ … I hate it with every fibre of who I am…but I’m still here. And there’s a reason. There has to be.”

“You’re grim and sensible… I don’t think you’d have the imagination to create White Walkers and wights just to play a political game to distract everyone from a southern war, when the North has already declared independence,” Alynore murmured.

“You believe me?”

“I do.”

“We’re all going to die because of this invasion.”

“We all die. Why do you keep fighting?”

“Because otherwise…it’s the end of all things.”

“Perhaps you need to _show_ people why they should be frightened,” Alynore murmured, yawning, and curled against Jon, her body becoming heavier, her breaths deeper, as she fell into a deep and restful sleep.

Jon’s eyes popped open, and he stared long and hard at the canopy.

 _Show, don’t tell_ , Maester Luwin reminded them, as they planned their campaigns. He had always meant, ensure your words match your actions. Never let anyone question the honour of your intentions. Set the precedent: Show your word is your bond.

But maybe… _Show them, stop trying to tell them_ , Jon thought. Show the two Queens why their war was petty, and ultimately irrelevant. Why they needed to stop fighting, and commit their armies to fighting the Night King’s hordes.

* * *

“There is news, my lady,” Maester Wolkan said, glancing from Sansa to Larra, who had collapsed, groaning, into the settle moments earlier, hands aching, in desperate need of a bath to rinse the sweat from her body - the forge was horrifically hot to her now, though she remembered it as warm and inviting. She was too used to the cold now, to linger by the fire without feeling the heat like a trap. “Two thousand Unsullied soldiers took Casterly Rock, unchallenged. The Lannisters have been summoned to the capital by Queen Cersei. The larders and treasuries had been emptied. When the Ironborn returned to their ships…they were set upon by Ironborn.”

“Ironborn?” Sansa murmured breathlessly.

“Led by Euron Greyjoy, who has styled himself King of the Iron Islands and allied with Queen Cersei,” Maester Wolkan said apologetically. “The Ironborn destroyed the ships flying Daenerys Targaryen’s colours; for days, mutilated and drowned Unsullied have been washed ashore at Lannisport.”

“Oh, dear,” Larra sighed heavily, glancing at Brandon, whose face turned sad and grim, his eyes gleaming but fading out of focus as he remembered… “Maester Wolkan…may I request that in future, when you deliver any bad news, you also give a _hint_ of hope. Doesn’t matter how small.”

“The winter crops are flourishing, my lady.”

Larra winked at the maester, her smile sardonic, teasing. “That’ll do.”

“Any word from Dragonstone?” Sansa asked. “From Jon?”

“None, my lady, since confirmation that the King has been granted access to mine obsidian from the Dragonmont,” Maester Wolkan said apologetically. They had just received the first shipment; that raven had been weeks ago.

“Euron Greyjoy would be a fool indeed if he didn’t turn the Iron Fleet toward Dragonstone soon,” Larra murmured. “Daenerys Targaryen cannot conquer the mainland with her armies if her armies cannot reach the mainland…though that does pose the greater threat, will she unleash her dragons so soon, to take Westeros?”

“I suppose the benefit of the Targaryen invasion is that Cersei cannot unleash the Greyjoys on _our_ fleet,” Sansa said.

“At least as long as we all overwinter at Winterfell, our people will be safe from Ironborn attacks,” Larra said. “If we have to reclaim coastal castles when the snows melt, the krakens shall learn how sharp a direwolf’s bite is.”

“I’d rather not lose the ships, all the same,” Sansa said.

“Nor I. I know what they cost the Northern treasury… The Ironborn fleet is made of wood, I imagine.”

“Yes.”

“The Targaryen queen is an arrogant, impulsive girl with three dragons. I think we can safely surmise that Daenerys Targaryen will target the Ironborn fleet in retaliation for her humiliation at the Rock, as vengeance for her butchered soldiers,” Larra said. “In this quarrel between queens, Cersei has drawn first blood using the Ironborn fleet. The Queen’s dragons may yet deal with the Ironborn for us… If Tywin Lannister taught Westeros anything during the War of the Five Kings, it’s that it is someties expedient to allow others to slaughter your enemies on your behalf.”

Sansa cast a sharp look at Larra, frowning slightly; it was true, though. Tywin Lannister had redefined warfare by conspiring with the Freys to arrange the Red Wedding - everyone knew Lord Tywin had made assurances to the cowardly Lord Frey. Nobody dared accuse the Lannisters outright, because the Freys had been seen to take all the risk. They had taken all of the credit. And the blame.

“How do you know the Targaryen queen is arrogant and impulsive?” Sansa asked, when Maester Wolkan had bowed himself out of the solar. Larra yawned, nodding her chin toward Brandon. He turned his pale face to hers, holding her gaze, and Larra woke up a little, sitting up straighter. She frowned at the question in Brandon’s eyes.

Slowly, she nodded.

Sansa _knew_ Cersei. It was important she know Daenerys, too, the other side of the same coin.

“Show her.”

She helped wheel Brandon’s chair next to the settle, close to Sansa. Larra arranged the cushions, knowing all too well the stiffness Sansa would return to after Brandon had showed her everything she needed to see. Sansa was wide-eyed, and eyed Bran’s hand sceptically as he offered it.

“It’s alright,” Larra told her gently. “You’re safe.”

Sansa swallowed and eyed Brandon’s hand before resting her palm in his.

It was strange to watch Brandon whisk Sansa away with him into his memories, the way her eyes turned milky-white and her body relaxed against the settle. Larra sighed, and tucked a blanket and a fur over Sansa to keep her warm. Then she realised she sat alone in the solar, and cast about for something to do; she still did not sleep well. Her bed was far too soft.

She found some knitting, and eyed the ledgers and letters on the great desk, and settled herself in the carved chair, peering down at Sansa’s work. While Sansa learned, Larra would work, sharing the load. Alternating between writing - she had spent weeks acclimatising her fingers to holding a stylus and scribing, practising her handwriting - and knitting, Larra went through the pile of paperwork, answered scrolls, read the most recent accounts, and annotated several documents, making notes for their preparations for the castle - repairing the Broken Tower; fortifying the glasshouses; preparing as much pitch as could be made; the cost of cheap, plentiful grains from Essos to cover the poor wheat yield, or finding alternative ways to prepare what they had.

While Larra worked, Brandon took Sansa on a journey, watching a timid girl in Pentos become a conqueror and a killer.

“Larra…” The voice was soft; she glanced up, letters swimming in her vision. She saw Brandon staring back at her; beside him, Sansa’s eyes were still milky, her hand loosely draped in his. “Something has happened in the West. You must see…”

Larra set down the stylus, and tucked herself on the flagstones in front of Brandon’s wheeled chair, reaching her hand up. He took it, and Larra blinked.

The sun was shining hotly down upon them, great monuments of ancient red stone jutting up from wide open plains toward the sky, lazy rivers winding around them, lined by dense shrubs with prickly boughs and dying flowers.

Everything else was burning.


	25. Fire & Blood

**Valyrian Steel**

_25_

_Fire and Blood_

* * *

The air was thick with smoke and the screams of Dothraki bloodriders flinging themselves from their mounts to slash at Lannister soldiers struggling to raise their spears, shuddering with dread, as a great black dragon circled and banked over the river, his sheer proximity causing the water to hiss and bubble, as fire sparked in the back of his gullet, the only warning for a group of soldiers who saw him - and fled, screaming as Drogon belched fire upon them, setting alight wagons and the horses that pulled them, soldiers roasted inside their gilded-steel armour as their screams grew high and tinny, desperate to reach the river, now black with soot and the blood of soldiers slain by the Dothraki, the riverbanks littered with the still-burning dead turning to ash carried on the winds, carried in the water, as Dothraki bloodriders leapt through great curtains of flame, fearless, their horses charging through, biting and kicking, heedless of fear or injury, as the Westerosi soldiers buckled, and fell back, and were slain in their droves.

The Lannister line was buckling: Officers on horseback galloped behind their men, and Larra watched Ser Jaime Lannister, his gilded-steel hand gleaming, riding with no helmet, astride a beautiful white horse, encouraging his men to “Hold the line!”

For every spear that struck its target, felling a Dothraki horse and its bloodrider, a dozen Lannister soldiers were trampled underfoot as the horde advanced.

And Larra watched grimly, her eyes wide, and Robert Baratheon’s voice inexplicably resounded in her head: “ _If the Targaryen girl convinces her horse-lord husband to invade, and the Dothraki horde crosses the Narrow Sea, we won't be able to stop them… We hole up in our castles, a wise move. Only a fool would meet the Dothraki in an open field… They leave us in our castles. They go from town to town, looting and burning, killing every man who can't hide behind a stone wall, stealing all our crops and livestock, enslaving all our women and children…_ ”

Robert was right.

In matters of war, there was no-one with better instincts than Robert Baratheon, who had only lost a single battle… _Possibly one better_ , Larra thought, Robb’s face flickering in her mind. Robb had died undefeated. But even he could not have fought off the hordes, not in open field, and everyone knew it.

The Dothraki could not be defeated in open field. An irrefutable truth. They had never crossed the Narrow Sea. Now they had.

The screaming hordes of the Dothraki.

They were _magnificent_ , Larra admitted it, bold, exultant in combat, utterly unafraid, in their leather vests and oiled braids, their arakhs gleaming in the firelight as they flung themselves from the saddle, their horses struck down by archers - and behind them, even more, an endless river of bloodriders, bellowing, pushing themselves up to stand on their saddles, aiming their wicked, curved bows. To watch a horde descend on its enemy…breath-taking.

Larra frowned.

There was no need to unleash the dragon. No need to belch fire upon the armies: The Dothraki were making quick work of the most well-trained army in Westeros.

She spied a glimmer of silver amid the shadows and smoke.

Daenerys Targaryen looked little more than a tick, dug in on Drogon’s back.

Larra’s lips parted, following the direction of the dragon - who vomited fire and caused a line of wagons and carts to explode in a fury, scattering debris.

“Was that food?” Larra muttered, glancing darkly at Brandon, who was watching, tall and shrewd beside her. On his other side was Sansa, wide-eyed, bewildered, and utterly horrified - she had been removed from the Battle of the Bastards, seen everything only from a distance, and the aftermath, the survivors covered in gore.

They were fully immersed, and Sansa flinched every time a bloodrider slashed their arakh, and jumped as Drogon set alight more men, her lips parting on gasps as her cheeks went ashen, hollowed, and the dragon wheeled and banked in the air, goring the earth with deep burns.

Ser Jaime Lannister, sat astride his fine white horse, organised archers, as Drogon flew high above, wheeling and circling back around.

The archers loosed their arrows: High above, Drogon shrieked and exposed his armoured belly, sweeping down dangerously fast, to incinerate more of the archers.

Fire burned everywhere, men screamed as they blistered and turned to ash, bloodriders bellowed as they revelled in the slaughter - and that was what it was.

It was no battle: It was a massacre.

And the Dothraki adored it. They hollered as they rode through the Lannister infantrymen, some swinging twin arakhs, some wielding barbed whips, some had wicked spears or blade-tipped bows. And every time Drogon vomited fire, the Dothraki screams grew louder, more aggressive, more triumphant - they followed the greatest khal, riding the most horrifying mount in their history.

She gave them glorious death: And they loved her for it.

It was chaos. Pure chaos, everything on fire: The smoke obscured the sky, turning day to night, and ash drifted through the air like snow. Everywhere, the clang of metal as arakh met broadsword and spears clashed, and shields shattered - or turned to dust as Drogon breathed great waves of fire across the plains, along with the men that hid behind them.

A slim man in plain leathers galloped on a dark horse, clashing with a bloodrider - and he ran, toward a canvas-covered wagon, pausing only to change direction, avoiding more bloodriders, and free the sword from a burning soldier’s chest as he screamed, pinioned to a carriage, and killed a bloodrider, ducking as Drogon screamed overhead, the sky obscured by smoke and ash, everything burning, heat rippling in the air, and the strange screams of the dragon sent chills down the spines of all those who were still fighting.

He dived inside of the wagon, and a moment later, the sides of it fell away, unfolding to the ground like ramps, revealing the man - and the biggest crossbow Larra had ever seen. _Not a crossbow_ , she remembered, thinking back to her cyvasse games with the boys. _A scorpion_. Robb used to use them against cavalry of armoured elephants - they had often argued over the practicality of any Essosi armies transporting the elephants across the Narrow Sea.

“The Dornish scorpion,” Bran sighed softly. His eyes glimmered as he gazed at the weapon, and Larra focused on the man and the scorpion, as he primed the weapon with great spoked wheels, winching the bowstring back, and armed it with a steel spear six feet long, barbed and evil, heavy - and perfect for piercing tough flesh.

Anyone who knew their histories knew that a single, lucky bolt from a scorpion had pierced the dragon Meraxes’ eye, striking the dragon dead in mid-flight, and causing Queen Rhaenys Targaryen to plummet to her death.

One lucky shot was all that slim man and his scorpion needed.

But the sky was choked with smoke. Day was night, and though Larra felt merely as if they were stood in some balmy meadow, to the soldiers, it would be blisteringly hot - smoke stinging their eyes, sweat drenching their bodies.

As the little man in the leathers primed the weapon that was going ignored by Daenerys Targaryen while she burned soldiers alive, Ser Jaime shouted, “Take cover!”

They were close enough to Ser Jaime to see the look on his face as the men in front of him turned from flesh to fire to ash in a heartbeat, brushed away by the wind. He closed his eyes, shock and agony flitted across his face. Devastation quickly turned to grim determination as he opened his eyes, and set his jaw.

Men stood a chance of surviving against the hordes: There was no way to war against fire.

And Ser Jaime had watched Daenerys’ father burn men alive. Had stood guard over the monster he was sworn to protect while he burned Rickard Stark alive, his son Brandon asphyxiating himself trying to get free to save his father…

Aerys had wildfire.

Daenerys had dragons.

The bolt went wide.

The man in leathers primed the weapon - it was a job for a team, but he worked alone, feverishly arming the scorpion.

The second bolt struck true. They heard it - not the impact, but its aftermath: Drogon shrieked, the sound unholy, making even the marrow in Larra’s bones shrivel in dread, and blood rained down on the bloodriders below the beast, great fat droplets.

Drogon fell.

Larra raised her hand to shield her eyes as the wind swept billows of smoke away, briefly revealing the sun, and watched as Drogon careened through the air toward the unforgiving earth, his wings flapping uselessly, tail lashing in pain, and her lips parted as she lowered her gaze, squinting…

“Sansa…” she said, and her sister followed her gaze. On the horizon, watching the massacre, a tiny man was surrounded by bloodriders, their horses finer than any of the bloodriders’, silver circles gleaming on their furred vests - a three-headed dragon ouroboros worn by the Queen’s favoured few. “Lord Tyrion.”

“Ser Jaime is the only one who ever showed him kindness,” Sansa said urgently. “If he dies -“

“The Queen may find herself short a Hand,” Larra muttered, as Drogon appeared to recover from his shock at being injured. Fifty feet above the ground, his great wings flapped, stirring the fires, disturbing the ash, and Lannisters and Dothraki alike dived out of the way as he screamed so loudly Sansa clamped her hands over her ears, grimacing.

The man in leathers dived from the scorpion, just as Drogon vomited fire, destroying it in an explosion that rocked the ground beneath their feet. He belched so much fire upon the thing that had stung him, Drogon created a crater fifteen feet deep, scarred and smouldering and black with soot.

Up close - the only ones immune to death by dragonfire on this godsforsaken plain - Larra could see the injury that had stunned Drogon mid-air.

The bolt had hit its mark, but not accurately. The bolt intended for his eyes, the only vulnerable part of the beast, had struck the side of his head, piercing through, the barbs of the bolt tearing through the skin and sinew: the bolt had passed through the side of his armoured head, shattered one of his great horns, and slashed along his neck, before embedding itself in Drogon’s back, two feet from where Daenerys clung on, wild-eyed terror at her fall replaced quickly by fury that she had nearly been killed.

The dragon shrieked and screamed, and did more harm to the hordes as their horses - trained to be fearless in battle - whickered and snorted and screamed, and bolted, heedless of their riders, who fled the area as Drogon screamed and thrashed and vomited fire, blood splashing from his face, pooling along his neck.

Drogon thrashed too much for Daenerys to cling on; she tumbled off his back, and glanced around, wide-eyed, barking orders in Dothraki to bloodriders who bellowed and charged to her, arakhs raised - to protect her.

She had no weapon but her dragon, and he was beyond her control, a wild beast in tremendous pain.

And across the water, a knight on a white steed watched the white-haired girl, grimacing and attempting to climb back onto Drogon’s back - to pull free the bolt causing him such pain.

Ser Jaime saw Daenerys, vulnerable.

He saw Lannister spears littering the ground. Watched the bloodriders holler as they surged toward their khaleesi. And winced against the pain of the sound as Drogon screamed, the barb twisted and tugged by Daenerys, embedded deep into his flesh - they did not know it, but embedded into his bone - and Ser Jaime acted.

He spurred on his horse.

Plucked an upright spear from the chest of a Dothraki bloodrider.

And charged.

A lifetime of jousting, a lifetime of battles and war and inexplicable bravery mingled with stupidity, Ser Jaime charged.

Daenerys yanked the bolt free. Drogon screamed. Turned his head. Vicious eyes lanced on Ser Jaime as he advanced with a lance of his own - Drogon opened his mouth.

The slim man in leathers barrelled out of nowhere, jumping off his horse to shove Ser Jaime out of the way as Drogon bathed their horses in fire.

With a tremendous splash, Ser Jaime Lannister landed in the water, weighted down by his gilded armour.

The common sell-sword in plain leathers, who had wounded Drogon the Dread, hit the water, already dead of shock as half his body burned.

* * *

When the fighting was done, they watched Lord Tyrion softly pad through the ash-meadow. Searching… He was searching for his brother…

“Ser Jaime resurfaced just beyond the river-bend,” Bran said gently. “He is alive, though he nearly drowned. He is on his way to King’s Landing, to tell Cersei.”

“He’ll wish the dragon devoured him,” Sansa said curtly.

Larra followed Lord Tyrion, as he came upon Daenerys. She rested on a rocky outcrop, Drogon resting behind her, smoke billowing, embers hissing, the Dothraki shoving the prisoners-of-war toward their Khaleesi for judgement. She strode closer, the better to hear Daenerys and her advisor; Sansa appeared at her side, the wool of her gown immaculate, untouched by the scorched earth, by the blood of the slain, by the ash and smoke lingering in the air. She was paler than usual, but watching Lord Tyrion and Daenerys shrewdly.

“Our strategy was to unleash the hordes,” Lord Tyrion said sharply. “Not to spew dragonfire across the Westerlands.”

“My enemy is defeated.”

“And Drogon is injured. Your _child_ …is injured,” Lord Tyrion frowned. “How often must he take the weapons aimed at you before you realise he is still _vulnerable_?”

“Drogon grows bigger with every moon-turn,” Daenerys said dismissively. “He will heal.”

“And possibly come to associate you with pain,” Tyrion warned.

“I am his mother.”

“It is _mothers_ who should protect their children,” Tyrion said, with soft accusation, “not the other way round. Do not give Westeros even more reason to endanger these rare creatures you brought forth into this world. They are far too precious to risk with your foolhardiness.”

Daenerys glowered, but had no reply.

Her bloodriders shoved their prisoners forward. Daenerys turned her expression almost neutral, but her coaxing came off as condescending when she started to speak. “I know what Cersei has told you. That I’ve come to destroy your cities, burn down your homes, murder you and orphan your children… That’s Cersei Lannister, not me.” Larra scoffed incredulously; Sansa raised her eyebrows. “I’m not here to murder, and all I want to destroy is the wheel that has rolled over rich and poor, to the benefit of no-one but the Cersei Lannisters of the world.”

“She _wants_ the Iron Throne,” Sansa said succinctly. “If she truly wanted to eradicate the wheel, she would melt the hideous thing down and go back to Essos where she’s wanted.”

“I offer you a choice,” Daenerys said. “Bend the knee and join me. Together, we will leave the world a better place than we found it… Or refuse, and die.”

“I’d rather she be plain stupid than delusional,” Larra sighed, shaking her head. “Submit or die? She will unite the entirety of Westeros _against_ her to fight for their freedom!”

Some men knelt, without thinking. Others stood taller, shoulders back, levelling glares at the white-haired girl. Drogon shrieked, flaring his wings, blood splattering from his still-seeping wound. More men knelt, quickly. But there were some - nearly a dozen - who stood with their backs ramrod straight, even in the face of a dragon’s fury. Most of them were surprisingly young, despite the soot and blood smearing their faces.

“Step forward, my lord.” Daenerys did not speak above a murmur.

An older, dour-looking man in armour emblazoned with the sigil of a striding huntsman stepped forward.

“House Tarly,” Larra murmured. She remembered Samwell. Had learned all the sigils of Westeros as a girl; knew this must be Samwell’s father, and stood beside him, tall and strapping, with a handsome face and bloodshot eyes pinched with dread, must be Sam’s younger brother. They were as alike as chalk and cheese, though the earnestness shining from his face reminded her of Sam.

“You will not kneel?”

“I already have a queen.”

“My sister. She wasn’t your queen until quite recently, though, was she? Before she murdered your rightful queen, and destroyed House Tyrell for all time,” Lord Tyrion said glacially. “Your allegiances appear to be somewhat flexible.”

“Less so than yours, my lord Hand,” Lord Tarly retorted accusingly, his eyes flickering to the symbol of office pinned to Lord Tyrion’s leather jerkin, and Tyrion had the grace to shift uncomfortably under Lord Tarly’s quelling gaze. “Say what you will of your sister, she was born and raised in Westeros with all our histories and customs, she has spent over twenty years ruling the Seven Kingdoms - all but the last few years those of peace and plenty. Two short wars - one started by Balon Greyjoy - the other…by _your_ father when Lady Catelyn arrested you upon the Kingsroad; and you repaid him with murder. And now you have threatened the freedoms of Westeros by inviting fire-worms and savages and foreign warlords to our shores to destroy all that we are - out of spite for your family.”

“You will not trade your honour for your life,” Daenerys said coolly. “I respect that.”

“Perhaps he could take the black, Your Grace,” Lord Tyrion interjected quickly, barely concealing his anxiousness as Drogon furled and unfurled his wings behind them, assessing the damage. “Whatever else he is, he is a true soldier. He will be invaluable at the Wall.”

“This man, you tell me, is Lord Randyll Tarly - the only man to defeat Robert Baratheon in battle during the Rebellion,” Daenerys said. “Send one of the greatest living military leaders to my northern enemies, _give_ him to Jon Snow to lead his armies?”

“Jon Snow is not your enemy, he is King in the North and a potential ally,” Lord Tyrion said, sounding long-suffering. “Lord Tarly is indeed a most seasoned commander; if you will not lend Jon Snow troops to defeat the Night King, then send the Night’s Watch your prisoners of war to do with as they so choose, as sovereigns have for thousands of years - including your ancestors.”

“You cannot send me to the Wall,” growled Lord Tarly. “Only my true Queen, Cersei Lannister, has the power to exile me. You are nothing but a foreign invader clinging to the legacy of a cruel people dethroned decades ago.”

Daenerys’ eyes narrowed. She nodded at her commanders. The bloodriders strode forward, removing Lord Tarly from the rest.

“You will have to kill me, too.”

“Step back and shut your mouth!” Lord Tarly barked, whirling to knock the hands of the Dothraki from his shoulders, glaring at the boy.

“Who are you?” Daenerys asked.

“A stupid boy!”

“I am Dickon Tarly, son of Randyll Tarly.”

“You are the future of your House. This war has already wiped one great House from the world,” Lord Tyrion warned, and he sounded rather hectic. “Don’t let it happen again, bend the knee!”

“If it shows Westeros her true quality, then I shall die,” said Lord Dickon Tarly of Horn Hill, every bit as honourable and brave - and perhaps as clever - as his older-brother. “I will not kneel.”

Lord Tyrion grimaced, turned to Daenerys, said hastily, “Your Grace, nothing scrubs bold notions from a man’s head than a few weeks in a dark cell.”

“I meant what I said,” Daenerys said silkily, her voice heavy with threat. “I’m not here to put men in chains.”

“ _No_ , you would rather _burn_ them,” Lord Tyrion said scathingly, his voice sneering, and Larra’s lips twitched toward a smile in spite of the circumstances. _There he is…_ “Murder them, you are no better than Cersei was when she blew up the Sept of Baelor. You will show the world only that you take no prisoners; and your enemies will respond accordingly.”

“If imprisonment becomes an option, many will take it,” Daenerys said sharply. ”I gave them a choice…they made it.”

“You offered them a lifetime in _bondage to you_ or _death_. Is that not what the slavers of Essos offer?” Lord Tyrion insisted vehemently, and Daenerys looked as if she had been struck. “The ashes of your enemies are _not_ a firm foundation on which you can build the world you wish to create. It is _your_ choice. Do not make the wrong one.”

The Queen stared long and hard at her Hand, her expression yielding nothing. She turned, and stared out at the men gathered beyond. There was no love, no respect in their gazes, as the sooty men in heat-warped armour glared up at her on their knees. Only cold fear, and a slow, burning hatred kindled by the murder of their friends and brothers, slain by savages. No-one cheered; there were no smiles, or hands reaching toward her, whispering in awe. Only hostility. The reminder of her lost family, of everything they had taken from her.

Drogon called out, and Daenerys glanced up at him; the dragon’s great head, shining with blood, was turned northwest, toward a cluster of bloodriders galloping toward them at high speed. A khalasaar was easy to find; one led by a dragon, even easier, and Drogon dominated the horizon, flapping his monstrous wings, the ground shuddering with every harrowing scream.

Daenerys stared as the bloodriders hurtled closer, the men on the ground and the Tarlys stood in Drogon’s shadow shifting uneasily, their warped armour clanking, sweat dripping down their faces, leaving streaks through the soot and grime clinging to their skin, and the Dothraki commanders, those men who had remained behind with Lord Tyrion during the carnage - their braids were long and glossy and tinkled with silver bells that sang of prowess in battle, showing their status - muttering amongst themselves, as the small group of bloodriders approached. Their bare arms were smeared with black and blood-red slashes, as Khal Drogo’s khalasaar had once worn vibrant blue: They wore her colours. Targaryen colours.

The bloodrider at the head of the cluster leapt from his saddle, muttered to some of his commanders, and approached respectfully Daenerys, “ _Khaleesi_ …”

“What’s he telling her?” Sansa murmured, frowning.

“Nothing good,” Larra muttered, watching the Queen’s face. Whatever news he brought, she had been waiting for it: triumph made her face burn with a cruel arrogance, exultant.

“Something has happened,” Brandon said sharply, and Larra glanced at him. And she realised it was not Brandon, but Bran: because his eyes were wide with alarm, his cheeks pale, and he was gazing beseechingly at Larra, horror-struck. Her brother’s face shone through the mask of the Three-Eyed Raven, and dread, something like heartbreak, despair, flickered across his face. Tall Brandon was replaced by the courageous, impish little brother she remembered, curious and innocent. “Something _worse_.”

“How could things get worse?” Sansa asked, her face still pale, eyes flickering from the charred, smoking plains to the Dothraki laughing callously as they looted dead bodies, and Daenerys, rigid and cold above them, framed by Drogon’s bulk as the sun started to dip lower toward the horizon.

“Never ask that,” Larra warned grimly.

The vision changed.

They were no longer in open plains jutting with great natural stone monuments, but in a picturesque canyon. Either side, red stone walls rose, jagged and vibrant, turning the vivid blue sky into a winding ribbon of sapphire above them; a shallow river wound lazily along a faint, little-used trail, bubbling playfully. The riverbanks were lined with trees and shrubs, hardy flowers growing unexpectedly from crevices halfway up the walls. Some trees were tall and striving, amber leaves flickering in the breeze, among sycamore and elder, ash and chokecherry trees, redwoods, while some were short and shrubby, with dainty yellow flowers, velvet mesquite and juniper, mulberry and white oak, ancient olive trees, walnut and desert willow, the ground littered with agaves and prickly cacti, crimson penstemons, sprawling cliffroses, dainty gaura, bladderpod, spiderwort and catclaws heavy with seedpods, four-wing saltbush, desert broom and the golden chrysanthemum coveted as an emblem of the Westerlands.

It was a _beautiful_ place.

“Wait - what about the Tarlys?” Sansa blurted, blinking around, shielding her eyes from the sun that suddenly seemed much harsher without the smoke blocking its rays.

Larra was already staring grimly.

It was a beautiful place: It was also a perfect place for an ambush.

And an ambush there had been.

“The Tarlys are alive,” Bran said softly, his expression despondent as he winced, and they watched.

A caravan of incredibly fine carriage-houses had been ambushed. One wheelhouse lay on its side, one of the horses screaming, its leg broken: a bloodrider put it out of its misery, making the people clustered by the side of the wheelhouse whimper. They were richly dressed, jewels glinting gold and silver, the fabric of their clothing shimmering, furs gleaming, but some of them were bleeding superficially from being thrown about in the wheelhouse. The carriage-houses themselves were outfitted for royalty, golden lions inlaid into the sides of the polished carriage walls.

A dozen wheelhouses, wagons trailing out of sight behind them, guarded by Dothraki.

Lannister guards were heaped in piles - or had been left where they were slain, their blood colouring the dusty earth a rich ruby red, quickly cooling to black, attracting flies and curious lizards. It had been quick, the ambush - the bloodriders had caught the Lannisters before they even realised they were under attack. Their men lay butchered.

Now, the bloodriders threw open the doors of the wheelhouses, barking orders that no-one understood - some, who knew a few words of the common tongue, spoke harshly, poking their heads inside the wheelhouses - and a few bellowed and fell back, dragging older men out, snatching the daggers from their hands. They were killed on the spot, and the sound of feminine screams echoed off the eternal red-stone walls.

“There’s smoke to the south,” Sansa murmured, her eyes raised to the skies, as one carriage-house was emptied of people, who were herded together at the point of an arakh, wielded almost lazily by a smirking bloodrider.

“That’s south-east,” Larra said gently, judging the skies.

“The fires burn that high?”

“We’re just that close,” Larra said.

Small children started crying. Every wheelhouse was emptied, sometimes roughly, sometimes at the point of an arakh, with dread gripping the faces of the girls manhandled toward their mothers, who held their beautiful daughters close, and young boys and old men knew they were soon to die, unarmed and useless. They were golden, all of them. Golden, and green-eyed; some had the stern silver hair of age, faces lined with wisdom. But they were all handsome, and all of them dressed richly in the manner of the West, in the asymmetric style favoured in the court of Queen Rhaella. And every one of them showed their colours - and their loyalties - with golden lions stitched somewhere, or draped around their throats, or studding belts or embossing lapels.

Then they heard it. The crash of thunder, and a scream…a shriek that curdled marrow and liquefied the insides of brave men. Drogon. It was not the sound of thunder; it was Drogon’s great wings, and a heartbeat later, plumes of dust rose as those great leathery wings flapped, and the beast gained footing. He shook his head, snarling, and Larra shivered, watching Drogon peer down at them from above the canyon, looming, his tail swishing - he reminded her of a shadowcat, she thought, stalking its prey, hungry for the kill…

A speck of silver and shadow dripped off Drogon’s back, climbing down, met by bloodriders to guide her on a sure-footed path, descending into the creek.

Larra watched the smoke off in the distance, now white - the fires were burning themselves out - and it seemed as if Daenerys had brought winter with her: Snow seemed to be falling in the creek, dusting the vibrant flowers and the bodies of the fallen. It wasn’t snow, though; snow did not look like that. It was ash.

The wind had brought the ashes of the dead Lannister army to the last of House Lannister.

Penned in by gleaming arakhs and wicked smiles, frightened children whimpered and cried as brittle old men tried to shield pregnant women and frail ladies and young mothers with small children clutching their skirts and clamped to their hips tucked their babies even closer, bright eyes darting, terrified, between the Dothraki and the dragon.

Daenerys walked toward her captives, dozens of them - all of Casterly Rock emptied, the Lannisters summoned to King’s Landing to support their Queen at court.

She walked past the Lannisters, bloodriders falling into place behind her, arakhs swinging loosely at their sides, bows idle, whips whispering like snakes across the dusty earth as the bloodriders grinned viciously at their captives, their dark eyes lingering on the prettiest women among them.

The bloodriders guided Daenerys to the wagons and carts behind the wheelhouses, removing tarpaulins and canvas to reveal trunks full of clothes, furniture, exotic animals in cages, musical instruments, a fortune in tapestries and bolts of Qartheen silks, velvets, heavier fabrics for winter, golden furs. Several armoured wagons hauled bars of gold; another, precious jewels. Finery all fit for a queen - and that was who it was intended for: Cersei. Gifts for their kinswoman and Queen. Further away, the bloodriders told Daenerys, the wagons were full of grain and other footstuffs.

“Very good,” she told the bloodriders. “Guide the wagons to join the rest of the khalasaar; the spoils we took from the battlefield will feed our armies. I want the khalasaar to protect the food. Escort it back to the poisoned water. When we have reached Dragonstone, I shall have my pick of the treasures, and make gifts of the rest.”

“Yes, Khaleesi,” the bloodrider nodded, and barked orders; bloodriders leapt onto their steeds, hollering and snapping their whips at liveried Lannister servants driving the wagons and carts.

“Your army has been defeated,” Daenerys said, walking forward with her hands clasped loosely before her. Her voice was calm, her face benign: Some of the Lannisters whimpered. “My Lord Hand, your kinsman Tyrion Lannister, bade me spare the life of those bannermen so unwise as to pledge their swords to your House.”

She paused for effect, and when no-one spoke up, she went on, “It occurred to me in that moment that, wise though he undoubtedly is, my Lord Hand is, by the nature of his familial loyalty to his House, _conflicted_ in his interests. I cannot have that. Nor can I allow my servants to question my decrees.”

She let the words fall heavy in the air, and a soft gasp issued from the pride of trapped lions.

“I look at you, and see in you the very same fear I once felt, facing down a Dothraki horde,” Daenerys mused, “facing down my wedding-night with my new horse-lord husband, little more than a girl, sold to be mounted. Do not fear. I shall not give your daughters to my bloodriders for their entertainment, nor as their _khaleen_. They deserve neither such brutality, nor such an honour.”

Mothers gripped their daughters even tighter. Old men glowered at the Queen, suddenly feeling sixteen again, strong enough to fight the savages to protect their nieces and granddaughters.

“I maintain an iron hold upon my bloodriders,” Daenerys said, her voice cold and clear. “They will not rape. They will not butcher innocents. They will sate their bloodlust only upon the battlefield, defeating my enemies. The same could not be said of the Lannister armies that marched upon Highgarden. Infants and the heads of young children were mounted on spikes beside those of their fathers, their mothers and sisters mutilated and left to bleed out where they were shoved to the ground to be raped… Who shall pay for this atrocity? Genna Lannister.”

A querulous-looking woman stepped forward, square of figure, her long shining golden hair curling past her waist, but for thick braids coiled into buns over her ears, held fast by ruby-studded gold nets, gold ribbons crossing her brow like a circlet. Larra watched her, and Sansa seemed to recognise a little of Tywin Lannister in her hard eyes, for her lips parted, and she glanced uncertainly at Larra, at Bran. Lady Genna did not look in the least bit perturbed by the appearance of Daenerys, her bloodriders, or her dragon. She looked imperious and almost smug, as if she knew exactly what was going to happen, and what the far-reaching consequences would be. She looked at Daenerys Targaryen, and her lip curled.

Daenerys saw it, and bristled. “I vowed before I ever left my queendom of Meereen that I would answer injustice with justice. My Lord Hand reminded me of it. He reminded me of the danger of allowing injustice to go unanswered,” she said, her eyes widening, that fierce expression of self-righteousness consuming her face, turning her unnerving, half-wild. That unshakeable belief in _herself_ above all things… “To allow _disloyalty_ to fester. I intend to burn away the disease, before it may take hold…”

Larra frowned, watching the Queen. _Burn away the disease, before it may take hold…? The disease…is loyalty_?

“Seven Tyrells were spared the atrocities committed at Highgarden,” Daenerys continued lightly, seeming to calm herself down. Her purple eyes drifted over the gathered Lannisters. There were strapping young men considered too old to squire but too young to command, old men with steel in their trimmed beards, little boys with dimpled cheeks and perfect golden curls rioting all over their heads. There were pretty young mothers with swaddled infants in their arms, and little girls with ribbons in their hair, young ladies still in the schoolroom with their septas, and old women with the bloom out of their cheeks and a firm grip on their precious grandchildren. Generations of Lannisters, from the very elderly - a white-haired woman leaned heavily on her cane, rheumy-eyed and gummy but dressed in finery, small children clustered around her for the feeling of safety she emanated - to the unborn, the belly of a young woman with tumbles of golden curls gloriously fat, heavy with a child. She was not the only one expecting; jewelled fingers rested on the rounded bellies of at least two other women.

“When Cersei Lannister blew up the Sept of Baelor, which was built by my ancestors, she showed the world the value she placed on not only her enemies, but her kinsmen as well. I do not believe in wholesale slaughter, nor in vengeance for the sake of it. However, someone must be held to account for the atrocities committed at Highgarden,” Daenerys told them sternly, her eyes resting on Lady Genna. “Seven Tyrells were spared the Uprooting of Highgarden, all of them female. I shall spare seven Lannisters - a kindness to my Hand, though you do not deserve it. And you, Lady Genna, shall choose. Choose amongst yourselves. Choose from among the innocent, and choose wisely. Choose who lives.”

Stunned silence met her proclamation. Lady Genna seemed to swell with rage, but it was a quiet rage, her green eyes glowing like wildfire, fixed on Daenerys’ face. There was no false promise in her words, or her eyes; nothing but cruel, unyielding intent.

“Choose…or I shall.”

“Surely, she won’t - “ Sansa breathed, gazing at Larra and Bran, startled. Watching the field of fire had been harrowing enough, to someone unaccustomed to unbridled carnage, but this… Larra frowned, something coiling unpleasantly in her stomach, knotting and twisting, tight… She winced, and glanced at Bran.

“Bran, tell me she doesn’t slaughter them?”

Bran said nothing, but sighed, and watched - and that was his role; to watch. Never to intervene, or alter things. He was a passive observer. Bran murmured miserably, “ _Yes, now the rains weep o'er his halls, and not a soul to hear…_ ”

Lady Genna stared at Daenerys long and hard. Finally, she glanced over her shoulder, and her kinsmen gasped, and it began. Begging. Pleading. Threats. Women weeping on their knees. Screaming, as their daughters were prised from their arms. The sharp slap of Lady Genna’s hand, and the low warning that their daughters would remember… Lady Genna chose.

Seven girls. The eldest little older than thirteen, already elegant, regal and poised, an exquisite beauty with gleaming green eyes, her golden hair shining to her bottom, dainty twists coiled like a circlet around her head, glimmering lions stitched onto the shoulders of her asymmetric ruby silk gown; the youngest, a tiny dumpling of four, had the most perfect golden curls coiled at her temples and bobbing over her neck, and sucked her thumb as her mother yielded her to Lady Genna, looking only slightly perturbed by the disruption. Seven, between the ages of thirteen and four.

Each of the girls was separated from their families - who wept, and screamed, and raged, attacking Lady Genna, who stood still and unyielding as a steel monument, every inch her brother’s sister. Her eyes remained fixed on Daenerys, who watched with an expression of mild interest, as the girls were penned by bloodriders. The eldest two stood rigid, their eyes wary of the savage men eyeing them with a cruel hunger - the eldest showed subtle evidence of budding breasts, a woman’s figure starting to blossom. Old enough for the Dothraki. One of the youngest girls started to cry, confused, calling out to her Mama, her tiny hands reaching for her, as her mother clawed and fought to get to her, her face shining with tears. Another gazed up at the older girls uncertainly. And one took the hand of the youngest, her unaccountably pretty face hardening as she glared at Daenerys with such scathing hatred, such viciousness, that Larra was surprised the Queen’s skin did not blister.

“Great _beauties_ ,” Daenerys said, and her tone was condescending as she cast her eyes over the seven girls. Whether it was a trick, a manipulation to show her power over the Lannisters, by forcing Lady Genna to choose…it was effective. The Lannisters were clawing at each other, screaming, arguing - showing their disunity: When it came to their survival, their _children_ , what parent would not fight to the death so that their child might live?

“I don’t choose them for their beauty,” Lady Genna snapped, her expression of utmost disdain as she sneered at Daenerys. “I chose them for their natures - the better to survive _you_ …” She drew herself up, her neck bleeding where one of her kinswomen had scratched her. She eyed Daenerys from the top of her head - her intricate white braids - to her toes, still caked with mud and ash and blood from the site of the massacre. “Tywin was right: It _would_ have been better had King Aerys died at Duskendale. Rhaegar would still sit upon the Iron Throne…and you, _girl_ …you would never have been born to replace your father in cruelty - and firelust.” She gave Daenerys a look that would have broken braver men. Her lip curled. “It’ll be the end of you. Your father was King of Corpses by the end…and you…you shall be Queen of naught but ashes.” Daenerys blanched. Then her face twisted, her expression wrathful. Teasingly, Lady Genna warned her, “Targaryens have always been their own undoing.”

Daenerys snarled, and spat, “ _Dracarys_.”

Sansa gasped. Larra’s jaw dropped. Bran lowered his eyes sadly: he had seen this before.

Drogon craned his bleeding neck into the canyon and bathed the Lannisters in dragonfire.

Larra’s hands shook, and she felt dizzy, nauseous, needing to rest her hands on her knees and take great gulps of air deep into her lungs, retching. Sansa whimpered, her eyes glinting, and Bran sighed, reaching out to hug his arm around her shoulders, as she watched the people - old men, pregnant women, grand old ladies and little boys with perfect golden curls - burn alive. One mother had tried to break away from the rest, pelting for her daughter - her hair caught alight, her gown, and her brittle, hideous scream was harrowing - she burned before their eyes, tumbling to the ground.

The Lannisters died as their soldiers did - flesh turned to fire turned to ash in a matter of heartbeats quickly stopped. The dusty earth was scorched. Nothing remained of House Lannister but fragile statues of ash, and seven beautiful girls.

The eldest, in her fabulous silk gown, went white as a sheet, her eyes widening - but she did not look away. Did not react. Not until the next in age, with billows of frothing silver-gold curls, fell into a dead faint, knocking against her; she caught her cousin, and gently lowered her to the ground, tenderly stroking her face to wake her, as tears dripped down her cheeks, and the girl with eyes of the most vivid sapphire and paler, straight blonde hair to her waist screamed and screamed and screamed. The baby blinked confusedly, watching the fires subside, and ash appear in place of her family. The two younger girls sobbed, and the older visibly wet herself at the sight of such horror, while the younger collapsed in a heap on the ground, crying. The seventh, of middling age, with hair almost as pale as the Queen’s, stood with her eyes swimming, her face fierce, her body shuddering with suppressed rage and grief, her fists clenched.

The fires subsided. The Lannisters had become statues of ash; the breeze undid Daenerys’ work, teasing the piles of ash.

The youngest girl got free, running toward the ash, for the woman that had run for them. She looked confused, gazing this way and that, _seeking_ \- she frowned, tilting her head so that her bright golden curls bounced. “ _Mummy_?”

She reached out to the pile of ash: The statue crumbled into the breeze at her touch. The breeze embraced the statues, carrying them away in its arms, dispersing the ash here and there like snow, brushing delicately against the girls’ skin like the ghosts of the kisses of their loved ones, lingering in their long golden hair. Several of the girls looked frightened to breathe; another swatted at her hair and clothes as if _she_ had been set alight, swatting the flames, and Larra thought she might wake up from such nightmares the rest of her life.

The eldest watched the baby, her eyes widening in horror: She pushed off from the ground, and was allowed to descend on her cousin, scooping her up, carrying her back to the rest.

Daenerys approached the girls, and Larra was made more uneasy by the benign smile on her face than by any of the gruesome bloodshed she had witnessed on the battlefield. She approached them slowly, looking serene, and her smile shone from her eyes, her body-language relaxed and unassuming - as if to coax and reassure them, as if she was not the executioner of their families but their benevolent saviour. She stood before them, giving the girl who had wet herself a compassionate look, her eyes wandering to the girl in a dead faint on the ground.

The little girl who stood with clenched fists and rippling pale silver-blonde hair tilted her head at Daenerys. And projectile-vomited.

All over Daenerys’ fine boots, the fur-trimmed hem of her flying leathers.

The little girl - her name was Calanthe - straightened, spat, drew her sleeve across her mouth, and glared, never taking her eyes off Daenerys’, as the Queen started, and gaped down at her ruined boots, disgusted - and annoyed. She raised her eyes to glare at Calanthe.

On the ground, the eldest, Narcisa, finally roused her cousin, Crisantha, named for the famed beauty of the golden chrysanthemums of the West. Blue-eyed Delphine’s screams had subsided to a ragged whimper, and then to silence, but her lips were still parted, as if she could no longer give voice to the grief screaming in her heart; she stood like a statue frozen, her mouth open, eyes glazed.

Larra’s heart had made the same sound when she learned Father had been killed.

She had heard it again, when she learned of Robb’s fate, of Rickon’s. As if the grief throbbing through her heart would never gentle, always paining her. It was silent, but it was _strong_.

The vomiting girl, Calanthe, gave Daenerys another withering glower, and tucked her arms stoutly around the shoulders of her two younger cousins, delicate Altheda in her shimmering golden gown damp with her own urine, and little Rosamund, uncertainly clutching her doll, her eyes damp. The baby, Leona, sat on the ground by Crisantha, sucking her thumb complacently, ash collecting in her curls.

It was the little lioness, Calanthe, whose glare caused Daenerys’ smile to falter. Hostile, tear-streaked little faces, pale and afraid, gazed back at her: The younger girls continued to cry silently. Crisantha roused, confused, and turned green as she glanced around and saw the blackened earth, collapsing into her cousin Narcisa’s lap with a moan.

Larra watched Daenerys. She looked… _confused_ …that the girls were not breathless with wonder, awe and gratitude that their lives had been spared, even as the wind continued to churn their family’s remains around them, flecks of ash caressing their skin.

The sound of hooves made the girls startle, and Daenerys’ face was imperious and unyielding once more as her bloodriders appeared - with Lord Tyrion, in his clever, modified saddle. His cunning eyes swept over the creek, the Lannister lions on the wheelhouses, the dead soldiers sprawled where they had been slain, the blackened earth and swirling ash, the crying girls.

Assessing, weighing… Lord Tyrion turned a dark look on Daenerys as Narcisa recognised Lord Tyrion and let out a shuddering gasp, a soft sob. “What have you done?”

“Let the last of the Lannisters be an example to all of the Houses of Westeros,” Daenerys said coolly. “Now that House Lannister is extinct but for this handful of small girls and my Lord Hand, I trust I have his undivided attention…and loyalty.”

* * *

“You think it’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s one of the few chances I might have. I think I could drag a wight into Daenerys’ court and she’d sooner blind herself to the truth,” Jon grunted. “You heard her the other night, she will not be _distracted by small men_ … People have to be shocked out of apathy, and Daenerys…”

“What about Cersei?” Theon prompted, and Jon pulled a face, shrugging.

“As for her, I doubt I’d manage to arrange an audience with her - not without finding myself in a Black Cell,” Jon sighed. “She’d likely accuse me of conspiring with Daenerys to depose her - out of vengeance for Father.”

“You’re _King_ in the North,” Theon reminded him. “You could call an armistice… If you truly want the North to remain neutral, it’s an opportunity for you - get the queens to meet on neutral terms, so you can show the both of them what’s truly at stake.”

“I’d have to guarantee I’d have something worth showing,” Jon said, glancing at Theon. Without the presence of Ser Davos on the island the last few weeks, Jon had found himself more and more seeking counsel with Theon, of all people. But he had been Jon’s brother once. And he had learned from his past.

“And how d’you do that?” Theon muttered, gazing out to sea. They sat on the clifftop, the frostbitten grass shivering; Jon wore no cloak, enjoying the sun shining down on them. The days had been fine, and he raised his face to the sun, resting; his nights had been exhausting.

After their first few nights together, Jon now returned to his chamber every night to find Nora already waiting for him, a smile on her face. No matter how exhausted he was, that delicate smile, the excitement glowing in her green eyes, was enough to set his blood afire, thrilled and excited. They had been learning each other - and they were emboldened; they were unabashed, confident in each other’s company, each other’s embrace. Nora was gentle and voracious; Jon gave her what she wanted, and relished every time.

If others had caught wind that Lady Tyrell had been slipping into the chambers of the King in the North for weeks, and did not reappear until past dawn, her lips swollen, skin delicately flushed from a dawn tumble in the sheets - or beside the hearth, or over the chaise - then nobody mentioned it. Not even the Sandsnake Nymeria, who revelled in intrigue and gossip.

If Theon guessed the truth about Nora, he didn’t mention it, but he had seen her wandering down the corridor the other morning, when he had come to meet Jon to discuss news from White Harbour carried by the Ironborn who had shipped obsidian north.

“There’s only one way,” Jon said grimly, glancing at Theon, who frowned. Jon tugged at the long grasses and spent wildflowers. The last few weeks had brought harsh winds and unforgiving sleet-rain: Theon warned they would not have favourable weather to sail for much longer. “Go beyond the Wall and snatch a wight, and drag it to King’s Landing if I have to.”

Theon gaped. “Do you wish to die?” Jon scowled. “Jon, you cannot go beyond the Wall, not after what you’ve told me about Hard Home. Sansa will be furious that you’d put your life at risk - again.”

“Then I shan’t tell her ‘til the thing is done!” Jon blurted, the mention of Sansa’s name rubbing him the wrong way - because he knew exactly how Sansa would feel about it.

“And if you fail?” Theon said sternly. “Sansa will think Daenerys is to blame; you went beyond the Wall to snatch a wight because she would not believe… Sansa will go to _war_ on Queen Daenerys over you. And Daenerys will destroy Winterfell.”

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Everyone on this island seems to understand that Daenerys’ first instinct is the very _worst_ instinct.”

Theon sighed, shaking his head. He muttered, “You remember what Maester Luwin used to tell us, as we planned our cyvasse campaigns?”

“Which part?”

“That if our words don’t match our actions, very quickly people will come to realise that our word means nothing,” Theon said, his voice heavy with guilt and grief. Theon eyed Jon thoughtfully, and asked, his tone careful, “What d’you think of her?”

“She claims to want to break the wheel of oppression…but she’s invaded Westeros to take the Iron Throne.”

“And everything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit.”

“Father…” Jon sighed. He stared out over the choppy bright-grey sea, admitting miserably, “I miss him.”

“Me too. I miss them all…” Theon grunted. “I wish none of us had ever left Winterfell. I wish none of this had happened.”

“When it comes down to it, I suppose all we can do is decide what to do with what life flings at us,” Jon said. “It’s our choices that matter, how we react.”

After a little while, Theon asked, “Think Daenerys will win?”

“She’ll take the Iron Throne, I’ve no doubt about that…it’s just a matter of what she’ll lose in the process…and if it really matters to her, after all.”

“I wonder what Sansa would think of her.”

Jon exchanged an arch look with Theon.

“I believe we both know what Sansa would think of her. Sansa’s far too used to sweet courtesies concealing true cruelty not to see through Daenerys,” Jon said, and Theon smirked. They both admired Sansa. “And for all her fine clothes and prettier words about breaking chains, at her heart Daenerys Targaryen is a warlord, a _conqueror_. By its very definition, that makes the Queen an _oppressor_.”

“I think you should be careful of what you say around her,” Theon said softly.

“Lest I end up kindling?” Jon quipped, his smile grim. It had always been a possibility - and for the obsidian now being shipped to White Harbour, it was a risk Jon had always had to take.

“I mean it, Jon. She’s come to respect you and your opinion has weight - but the things she respects you for are the same reasons you’re a threat to her,” Theon said, uncharacteristically wise. “She’s too busy lusting after you at the moment to realise it, but the moment you say the wrong thing and her lust turns to hate…”

“I know,” Jon sighed, shaking his head. “You think I’m afraid to die?”

“No,” Theon said honestly, eyeing him shrewdly. “It might even be a blessed relief, to _rest_. We’re soldiers… We’ve both been soldiers since we left Winterfell.”

Jon sighed heavily, and they stared out to sea. With the sea so bright, he could almost imagine it was the snow-covered moors outside Winterfell. “We learned how to die a long time ago.”

* * *

The solar was silent, but for the crackle of the flames, and Sansa’s delicate sniffles, her fingers trembling as she raised her hand to wipe her eyes. Shock; that was what it was. Larra slumped in the settle, hugging one of Sansa’s embroidered cushions. Bran sat gazing sadly at them.

“Bran…tell me that was a version of a possible future,” Larra said hollowly.

“It was always a possibility,” he said softly.

“She spared the soldiers but slaughtered the innocents,” Sansa sniffed, wiping her eyes. She shook out her hands, frustrated with herself for crying, but Larra understood: she just felt numb. All she could think of was those seven little girls. “People need to know about this. What she’s done.”

“You don’t think Daenerys will crow about this?” Larra said grimly. “The entirety of Westeros will hear of it. Jon definitely will.”

“What if Jon is imprisoned on Dragonstone?” Sansa asked, her voice bright with fear. “We’ve had no word from him in _weeks_.”

“You heard Daenerys - she will not put a man in chains,” Larra said, her tone mocking.

“Then he is dead!”

“Sansa, calm down,” Larra told her gently.

“Jon is safe,” Bran said softly.

“What’s he doing? What is he doing, right this moment? I want to know,” Sansa said, her tone fierce. “I need to know he is safe.”

“He’s…engaged in a delicate diplomatic task,” Bran said, his lips twitching.

“You aren’t half ominous, Bran,” Larra told him, rolling her eyes.

“Don’t worry; he’s enjoying it.”

“You won’t get a straight answer out of him,” Larra warned Sansa, who looked like she wanted to press the issue. “Let it suffice we know he’s alive.”

“Very much so,” Bran quipped. His amusement faded, and he sighed, “He will learn soon enough what Daenerys Targaryen has done. And he will not linger long on Dragonstone.”

“How do you know?” Sansa asked breathlessly. Bran smiled warmly at them.

“I know our brother.” One of the guards arrived, and Bran nodded silently to him.

“Off to bed? Goodnight,” Larra said, and leaned in to kiss Bran’s cheek. He smiled softly, and the guard wheeled him around, pushing him out of the solar. Sansa groaned and slumped back, folding a washcloth soaked with hot water and camomile over her eyes. She handed one to Larra, and for a little while, they rested. They were too rattled from the ash meadow…

“You haven’t said much about Bran’s visions.”

“I’m still wrapping my mind around it. He has such _power_ … Has he shown you…her?” Sansa asked, and Larra heard her sit up; she did the same, letting the cloth fall from her eyes, already cooling. It had felt delicious, soothing the phantom sting of smoke in her eyes.

“Yes. On our journey from Last Hearth. The last vision he shared was Jon’s arrival at Dragonstone…” Larra said, and Sansa nodded thoughtfully. “It’s important he showed you. I know it’s…absurd, and terrifying, that Bran has this…this _power_. Even more spectacular that he has the gift to share it with us… It’s important that you saw for yourself, without embellishment or others’ bias…to get your own measure of her. You need to be prepared.”

“She thinks of the North as her property…her enemy… She has two more dragons. If she decides to use them, to really use them…”

“We stop her,” Larra said coldly. Sansa stared at her. And then she nodded, seeing the unyielding look in Larra’s eyes.

“We stop her,” she agreed. Sansa’s voice was very young, and scared, when she asked, “What about Jon?”

“Jon’s intuitive,” Larra said. “He’ll have very quickly made up his mind about her.”

“She is beautiful,” Sansa said mournfully, and Larra pulled a face.

“Less and less with every massacre,” she grunted, and Sansa raised an eyebrow, agreeing. “Sansa…how did you feel when she _smiled_ at the girls?”

“For a heartbeat I thought of Joffrey…then I wondered whether she was even _aware_ of the horror of what she had done,” Sansa said, thoughtful. “It wasn’t…malicious and joyful, the way Joffrey always was when he indulged in cruelty…it wasn’t entertaining…to her, it…it seemed like…”

“Like she felt _righteous_ in the act. You remember what I said about our way? We pass the sentence, we swing the sword…” Larra said, and Sansa nodded. “She’s already forgotten what death is… Those girls…the eldest could not be older than you were when Father was executed. And the youngest… Sansa, do you think it possible Tyrion condoned such a thing, perhaps…was it planned between them?”

“No,” Sansa said slowly. “No, I do not believe Tyrion would ever have a hand in that. Daenerys said it was a kindness to her Hand, but…”

“But what?”

“She had already won the battle. The bannermen had bent the knee to Drogon. What reason could she possibly have for going after the Lannisters? They were unarmed, women and children and old men. She killed them all to punish Tyrion - because Jaime Lannister outsmarted her. She was humiliated, in front of people who had warned her,” Sansa said, working it through slowly. “She killed them as punishment for her wounded pride, and she kept the girls alive to remind Tyrion of it. Now their fates rest with Tyrion. Whatever disappointment _she_ suffers, she will be sure to threaten to take it out on the last Lannisters. Whipping-girls to ensure Tyrion’s best efforts against Cersei… What?”

Larra was smiling softly at her, proud. “You’re thinking like a true strategist now… What will Tyrion do?” Sansa sighed, and thought long and hard before she answered.

“When he came to King’s Landing, Lord Tyrion treated me with courtesy and respect. The first thing he did, in front of the court, in front of Joffrey, was to offer his condolences over Father’s execution. He didn’t rub my nose in it; he was in earnest…” Sansa said, clearing her throat awkwardly, still shedding the conditioning that saw her apologising for their father’s treason. “He was the only one who ever frightened Joffrey…the only one who stopped Joffrey’s torments. Before the Blackwater, he outwitted everyone in order to implement his own plans to defend the city. The city, and everyone who lived there, including Cersei… He will do what he must to ensure those girls are safe. Ultimately he’s too decent a person to let them be hurt because of him - or because of _her_ whims… He’s too clever not to realise why Daenerys _spared_ them.”

“What she did was an atrocity,” Larra said coldly. “Why did she go after them, after the fact?”

“The bannermen. Everywhere she’s gone, people have worshipped her… That scorpion did more than injure Drogon; it gave her ego a sharp sting,” Sansa said tartly. “She’s not _wanted_ here, or desired, or admired…she’s reviled and distrusted. In Essos, she was deified. In Westeros, people would rather die than follow her.”

“Strange, isn’t it? That someone who claims to want to bring an end to tyranny forces those she defeats to choose between utter subservience and death.”

“You don’t think much to her.”

“Not of the person she has become. I think she started with a wonderful dream that’s become confused by conflicting desires. I think what she’s done, and become, is in conflict with what she was conditioned to want since she was old enough to remember wanting anything,” Larra said, considering. “She can bring an end to slavery; that should have been her life’s work. Or she can claim the Iron Throne. There is no world in which she can have both. Becoming the Breaker of Chains was a happy by-product of her journey to amassing the armies and wealth to launch her campaign on Westeros.”

“She stayed in Meereen to _practise_ at ruling…and she _left_ because the reality of ruling became too much of a headache,” Sansa said disdainfully, her eyes sliding to the great working desk. The hour was late, but their day was far from over. “She was more interested in planning her invasion.”

“Ultimately her actions have proven her words as worth very little,” Larra said, shaking her head. “You must make sure to match your actions to your words, or people will learn your word means nothing.”

“Did Father tell you that?”

“Maester Luwin.”

“Did he give you lessons like this, too?”

“Is this a lesson?” Larra asked, her smile cunning; Sansa gave her a look, and she grinned. “Yes, he did. After Jon had left and Robb was busy ruling the North for Father and I was exhausted with Rickon…we’d sit in the Maester’s Tower, and I had my own chair by the fire. We would sit, and Maester Luwin would pick a topic, and we would just talk about it…sometimes I’d fall asleep. I’d always wake up with a blanket tucked over me… He always took care of me…” She sighed wistfully, miserably. She missed Maester Luwin like a constant toothache. She smiled sadly: “Taking care. That’s what it comes down to, ruling. Taking care of as many people as you can.”

“How does arming the entire living North to fight the Night King tie up with your policy of minimal-loss?” Sansa asked.

“It doesn’t,” Larra said grimly. “But it is necessary. If we can’t stop the Night King…well, we won’t be around to wring our hands about it… All Septa Mordane’s talk of _souls_ and _heavens_ …sometimes I wonder if we’ll leave our bodies behind, our corpses trudging along, and Father will be waiting for us.”

“I’m no longer certain about _religion_ …but I do believe they’re waiting for us,” Sansa said softly, gazing into the dying fire. She raised her blue eyes to Larra’s violet ones, and her smile could have made the sun rise. “All of them. We will see them again…but not yet.”

Larra smiled softly, agreeing, “Not yet.”

* * *

The court echoed with silence. Only a few stubborn candles flickered, the rest burned low.

Lord Varys sat still holding the raven-scroll in his hand.

Theon kept catching Jon’s eye, and they communicated silently, as only brothers could.

The news was…irrefutable, written in Lord Tyrion’s own hand. Telling them of atrocities, war-crimes committed on the Gold Road.

They sat for a very long time, in silence, in darkness. Finally, as the last candle wavered, and Jon sighed, pushing himself to his feet, Lord Varys seemed to shake himself from his stupor.

“Your Grace,” he said softly, and Jon paused, glanced back at the eunuch. “I will do everything in my power to help you. I hear talk of a Northern expedition. You will need help. And I am particularly situated to make arrangements that will see our queens behaving themselves for your sake.”

“I thank you, Lord Varys,” Jon said sincerely, glancing at Theon, who shrugged.

Nora was fast asleep in his bed when he arrived, the fire built up. Jon stripped, and climbed into bed, relishing the softness and warmth of her skin as he gathered her up close. She sighed, stretching luxuriously against him, and relaxed, nuzzling against him.

He woke her at dawn, making her toes curl, watching her blush and writhe, swallowing her dainty gasps, hissing as she raked her fingernails down his back and brushed delicate kisses over his chest and shoulders. The crisp dawn light spilled across the bed, turning her skin to silver and her hair to spun bronze, and they cried out as they came, Jon spending deep inside her with a decadent groan that made her smile, humming softly as she nuzzled his neck.

He rolled to his back, gathering her up close, and sighed as he gazed out of the window, into the bay.

Jon spied a ship on the horizon, his lips quirking into a smile.

 _Winter_ had come.


	26. Glorious Victory

**Valyrian Steel**

_26_

_Glorious Victory_

* * *

“Your Grace…”

“Ser Davos!” Jon grinned, and embraced the older man like any one of his brothers. “Well, you look no worse for wear. How was Storm’s End?”

“The Stormlords could not agree between them that the ocean is _wet_ ,” Ser Davos said, his beard twitching, but something glinted darkly in his eyes. “They bicker over who should take possession of Storm’s End. The castellan holds it, and will not yield it. Ah, none of the Stormlords has the men to take the castle anyway.”

“Taking a castle’s simple enough, even without numbers,” Theon muttered, looking shame-faced. “It’s _holding_ it.”

“Who’s that?” Jon asked, frowning. _Winter_ was not alone in the bay; another ship, its sails emblazoned with the sigil of a shield-maiden wearing a winged helmet and wielding a sword, was new to the bay. “Er…House Barahir of…Val Hall?”

“I told you I’d do what I could, convince any who’d listen,” Ser Davos said, looking disappointed nonetheless, even as Jon stared in surprise.

“He’s pledged to fight?”

“Well, he didn’t come all this way to propose marriage t’you, for all you’re so pretty,” Ser Davos quipped, and Jon smiled. “Shall we wait for him? And while we do, you can tell me all about this alleged ranging beyond the Wall seeking to kidnap dead men.”

“How did you - ?!” Jon blurted, and then realised, frowning at Theon, who shrugged.

“Aye, Theon was here as _Winter_ weighed anchor,” Ser Davos nodded. “No greetings, just ‘You’ve got to talk some sense into him’. Hopefully I’ll have better luck than I did with the Stormlords.”

Jon sighed heavily, and told Ser Davos everything. He listened, without interrupting, let Jon explain his reasoning, his plans.

“I told Jon it doesn’t count as a plan if it takes you longer to say it than it does to think it up,” Theon said, shaking his head.

“I agree, it’s a reckless venture,” Ser Davos frowned, staring at Jon, who remained grim and determined. Ser Davos sighed heavily, “ _But_ if all Jon says is true…it may be our only chance. We need armies. Real armies, if Queen Daenerys won’t offer hers.” Jon and Theon shared a look, and Ser Davos frowned. “What is it?”

“You’ve not heard?” Theon prompted, wincing.

Jon sighed heavily, talking himself up to telling Ser Davos, “Daenerys unleashed the Dothraki hordes upon the Lannister armies. She unleashed Drogon. She sent her Dothraki to ambush the Lannisters headed to the capital on the Gold Road… She burned every man, woman and child bearing the name Lannister.”

Ser Davos blinked quickly. His beard twitched. He stared at Jon, and he knew in Ser Davos’ mind, those children all had Princess Shireen’s face. “All of them?”

“All but seven young girls. For the seven Tyrells safe on Dragonstone when Highgarden was sacked,” Jon said, grimacing, glacial rage searing through him. “She called it justice.”

“We received word of it last night,” Theon said quietly. “And Daenerys is on her way back, with all the food from the Reach, and gold from Casterly Rock.”

“And the little girls?” Ser Davos asked, looking aghast.

“They’ll likely be her _wards_ ,” Jon said coldly, and Ser Davos’ beard twitched as his eyes narrowed. Sansa had been the ward of a Queen; Jon knew exactly what _kindnesses_ lay in store for those girls. Ser Davos eyed Jon shrewdly, understood the quiet rage in Jon’s voice.

“Your Grace, it sis my learned opinion that it’s best we make our graceful departure from the Queen’s court as soon as possible,” Ser Davos said brusquely, and Jon nodded.

“I couldn’t agree with you more, Ser Davos,” Jon said grimly.

“If I may caution you,” Ser Davos said, wincing, and he seemed to set aside his anger, or push it deep down. “If we do not wish the Queen to misconstrue your departure as you using the first opportunity to _escape_ …it would be prudent to prolong our voyage back to White Harbour just long enough to see her return triumphant from her slaughter.”

“Aye… I was thinking the same,” Jon said, though he would love nothing more than to leave this wretched island and never return, never think of Daenerys Targaryen and her warped principles ever again. He wanted to bury his head in the snow, he’d freely admit it: And he’d rather go North to capture a wight than have to endure his presence in the Dragon Queen’s court much longer. “I have to stay, anyway, if I have a chance of convincing Daenerys to agree to an armistice. Or at the very least, convince the Lord Hand to intercede on my behalf. Lord Varys has already offered his help in arranging things with Queen Cersei.”

“You want the both of them there?”

“I need to show them what they should truly be fighting,” Jon sighed, rubbing his face.

“You look tired,” Ser Davos frowned, and Jon saw Theon’s tiny smirk.

“He’s been having a lot of late nights,” Theon said, managing to keep a straight face as Jon shot him a warning glare. Oh, Theon knew about Nora alright. Ser Davos glanced between the two brothers, and gave Jon a look that said he could guess; he had been a young man once.

“Well, I’m glad at least you didn’t spend your time pining in my absence, sick with worry that one of the Stormlords would clobber me to death with his drinking-horn,” Ser Davos said, and Jon smiled.

“Were you in any real danger?”

“No, not really,” Ser Davos chuckled. “Hot-tempered young men and old warriors who know better, just as I thought. I brought back the only one with good sense and a sizeable force at his command.”

A small boat had just brought a group of men to the quay, the guards wearing the shield-maiden sigil proudly, a dark-haired, grim-faced man in leather-covered black armour and a heavy fur-trimmed cloak leading them as he strode toward Ser Davos.

“Jon Snow, this is Lord Marton Barahir,” Ser Davos said, and the older man bowed humbly to Jon. “Lord Barahir, this is Jon Snow, King in the North.”

“You have the look of the Starks,” said Lord Barahir, “and from what Ser Davos tells me, you inherited your father’s nature. I knew Ned; we became men together, fighting side-by-side in the Rebellion. He saved my life half a dozen times. It is right that I start to settle a debt that can never be repaid.”

“Lord Barahir inherited Val Hall from his nephew, Your Grace,” Ser Davos explained, “after King Stannis was defeated on the moors beyond Winterfell.”

“I have only recently returned from Essos, Your Grace, where I fought with the Second Sons,” Lord Barahir said regretfully. “I returned to find my lands in chaos, Val Hall in disarray. I have one hundred men with me; six hundred more I have instructed to sail directly to White Harbour, and make their way to Winterfell. I pledge my sword to you, and will be honoured to fight and die by your side.”

Jon stood, stunned. He stared at the man. He had a not-unhandsome, earnest face, cropped dark hair and a few noticeable scars. His men stood tall and proud. “Ser Davos…told you what you’re to face at Winterfell?”

“It matters not to me whether your enemies are creatures from myth or merely wildlings masquerading. I owe my life to Ned Stark,” Lord Barahir said solidly. He unsheathed his sword, and placed the tip down in front of him, holding the hilt with both hands - as Ned Umber and Alys Karstark had, in the Great Hall at Winterfell so long ago. “If by my life or death I can protect you, I will.”

Jon had never needed to learn how a king addressed a knight or lord who pledged his sword; he needed Sansa here for that sort of thing.

“Thank you, Lord Barahir,” he said, and his simplicity and his earnestness shone through, and it was enough for Lord Barahir, who was a simple, earnest man himself, and remembered Ned Stark as a quiet man who chose his words carefully.

“Tell me…has the walkway up to the castle shortened in my absence?” Ser Davos asked, and Jon smiled.

“It’s gotten longer, if anything,” Jon said, turning to grimace up at the eerie castle. “But there will be stew and ale at the top.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said Lord Barahir, sheathing his sword. His grim face broke into a smile, and they started the climb. Lord Barahir was quiet, but interested to hear news from other parts of Westeros: He was newly-returned to the Seven Kingdoms, uncertain about the invasion of Daenerys Targaryen, but curious about Jon’s journey from the Wall to kingship. Jon wondered if everyone he ever met henceforth would be curious to hear that story. It was long and bloody, as he had told Lord Tyrion when he first arrived at Dragonstone - and he didn’t much like telling it.

And in his turn, Lord Barahir told them about his time with the Second Sons. _His_ perspective on the sacking of Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen. Some of his men had journeyed to Westeros with him, born in Essos but desiring a home, and a strong commander they could respect: Some of those men had fled from Meereen, leaving great pyramids smoking behind them, a civil war raging.

Jon didn’t know how long ago that was: Daenerys had allegedly left Meereen in a state of détente with its neighbours, no more masked ambushes in the streets or the Fighting Pits. Lord Barahir’s men had escaped a city tearing itself apart.

As they climbed, and talked, Jon added Lord Barahir’s seven-hundred men to the Northmen, Valemen and Free Folk who could fight. It would not be enough to break the Night King’s armies…but it was more men than he had woken up with this morning.

If _Sam_ killing the first White Walker in millennia had taught Jon anything, it was that every man counted. It had taught people _not_ to underestimate appearances.

Their army would be small, patchwork, and deathly afraid - but the Night King would underestimate them - how could he not? His army was unbeatable, his commanders implacable. But they would fight, regardless.

Jon was startled from his grim thoughts by the presence of Lady Olenna in the great dining-hall, ready to break her fast. It was the first time she had appeared outside her chambers in the Sea Dragon Tower, and she looked pale, but there was a steely glint in her eyes as she glanced away from Ellaria Sand at the sound of Jon’s approach.

Jon couldn’t help note the lack of Essosi in the hall: The servants were liveried with the Tyrell rose and the sun and spear of Dorne. There were no Dothraki present. The only person from Essos present in the hall was Lady Tisseia, Lord Tyrion’s freed-slave companion and head of his household. Even Daenerys’ young cupbearers Qezza and Zafiyah were absent, though they usually enjoyed dining with the Sandsnakes and the Tyrell girls.

“Lady Olenna… I’m glad to see you back at court,” Jon said earnestly. Close by, Nora smiled and filled a plate for Amna, who stuck her tongue between her teeth in concentration as she carried the plate to the polished table.

“It must have been ponderously dull without my presence,” Lady Olenna said mockingly, her lips twitching. “Hmph. The Onion Knight returns. How were the Stormlords?”

“Squabbling children in need of a firm hand,” Ser Davos said, bowing to the majestic old lady. “I’m glad to see you, my lady.”

“And who is this?” Lady Olenna asked, gazing shrewdly at Lord Barahir, who bowed low to Lay Olenna, and to the other ladies present.

“Tell me, Lord Barahir, you have a shield-maiden for your sigil…” This was Nymeria Sand, purring and sensual even before breaking her fast. “Are there women fighting in your army?”

“None, my lady,” Lord Barahir said. “My ancestors, the First Men, had many shield-maidens and spear-wives who fought side-by-side with their fathers and brothers and sons. We honour them.”

“You would honour them by training your women, no?” Obara Sand grunted.

“Please forgive these young girls their barbed tongues,” Ellaria Sand smiled graciously, standing to curtsy to Lord Barahir. “They find it hard to reconcile their own privileged upbringing with the standards imposed on the rest of Westerosi women.”

“The King has allowed women to fight for him,” said Obara stoutly, her dark eyes - identical to each of her sisters’ - flickering to Jon with a hint of respect. It was difficult to tell with Obara, who always seemed angry.

“I’m not brave enough to forbid those women from fighting,” Jon said, and Ser Davos chuckled.

“Northwomen…are forces of Nature,” he said, with his beard twitching in amusement. “They frighten me more than the men.”

“With good reason,” Jon grinned, and Ser Davos chuckled. They both adored Lady Mormont - but she was a terror.

“You have come a long way, Lord Barahir,” Lady Olenna said, frowning. “I’m afraid Queen Daenerys is still on the mainland, roasting pregnant women and young boys alive.”

Jon glanced sharply at Lady Olenna.

“I did not come for the Dragon Lady,” said Lord Barahir solemnly.

“You call her _lady_ ,” Nymeria Sand murmured. “She is a queen.”

“No longer. Meereen has rejected her sovereignty. I returned from Essos when I learned that I had inherited Val Hall from my nephew. I fought with the Second Sons; some of my men had chosen to follow Daenerys Targaryen after Astapor…” Lord Barahir said, and everyone turned to stare at him, wary of the words that next poured from his lips. “When she set sail with the Dothraki and her Unsullied, she left vulnerable those she had sworn to protect… Some of my men were her lieutenants. They were given a choice: Surrender the city and flee, or die.”

“So they abandoned it.”

“A free Meereen was her vision, but she left others to see it born into a reality. Sell-swords who fight for gold in their purse, not ideas of a better world, and old men who did not wish to die so far from their home…” Lord Barahir said grimly. He shook his head, sighing, “Meereen is gripped by another civil war: But both sides agree, Daenerys Targaryen abandoned them. She is no longer their queen.”

“I think it wise we keep such news between us for the present time,” Lady Olenna said carefully, sliding her shrewd eyes over everyone.

“Jon mentioned something…in the West,” Ser Davos hedged.

“A Lion Culling,” Lady Olenna said, and Ellaria Sand sipped her tea, concealing her expression.

“Tell me,” Ser Davos said, glancing at Jon.

“After we’ve broken our fast,” Jon said heavily, clapping a hand on Ser Davos’ shoulder. “You won’t feel so hungry after I’ve told you.”

Lady Olenna was grim, disappointed but unsurprised that Daenerys had resorted to unleashing Drogon, inflicting cruelty and vengeance - “and she did so in the name of avenging Highgarden! To have House Tyrell _associated_ with such an act… To eradicate House Lannister is one thing; to make a show of sparing a chosen handful as the Queen’s _justice_ … It sits ill with me, I do not deny it. It feels absolutely wretched. She has besmirched our name.”

“She has dishonoured her own,” Jon muttered, and Lady Olenna gave him a dark, calculating look. “She’s done more harm to her own cause than Cersei’s.”

“Agreed,” Lord Varys sniffed, as Lord Barahir nodded solemnly, mopping up the gravy in his bowl with crusty bread, and Ellaria Sand muttered low with Nymeria, lolling sensuously on a chaise eyeing up Lord Barahir like choice steak, and Obara, who was glaring at Jon. He didn’t mind that: She was always glaring.

“Impetuous youth… _foolhardy_ ,” Lady Olenna sniffed, shaking her head. She was becoming more animated the more agitated she was over the Lion Culling - and its association with House Tyrell. Ser Davos was quiet in thought, and it was the quiet that worried Jon, knowing all too well his advisor’s thoughts had turned to Princess Shireen. “I doubt she will live long enough to learn her lesson.”

There was a shocked silence, more for the almost-treasonous talk than who had spoken: Lady Olenna was nothing if not punishingly honest and astute in her observations.

“You don’t think she will win this war?” Ellaria Sand prompted.

“I think Cersei Lannister is an expert at waging emotional war on her enemies. She’s just as short-sighted as our young queen, but she knows how to play people. And Daenerys Targaryen, whatever she thinks, is a slave to her emotions,” Lady Olenna said, sighing. She shook her head. “As a young woman I knew I had to appear to indulge in my emotions but remain above them, if I wanted to survive, if I wanted my family to thrive… I was _good_ …I was very good. Margaery was even _better_ … And Cersei destroyed all that she was, all that I had taught her to be, in the work of a single morning… I am alive because Margaery risked everything to warn me to flee the city before that wretch came for me too… What for? To witness the destruction of my House, the last of them frightened little girls clinging to the skirts of a woman whose body is failing her?”

“You survived so those girls would have a future,” Jon reminded her gently, and Lady Olenna gave him a fond smile that reminded him suddenly of Old Nan. “They need you. You’re the Queen of Thorns and you’re ferocious as any direwolf. They need you to protect them, and guide them. Endure for them, if you can’t bear to keep going for yourself.”

Lady Olenna eyed Jon shrewdly. “Who is it you endure for, Jon Snow? Not _the North_ , no…you’re too tired to be a true hero like the tales. You’re here because you love someone so fiercely even Death cannot claim you.”

A flicker of vibrant red hair, a hesitant smile, gentle hands - Jon swallowed, and frowned at Lady Olenna. The scars on his chest seemed to burn, as a reminder. “Death tried.”

“Mm. With me also,” Lady Olenna sighed.

“I don’t imagine the Seven are quite ready for the Queen of Thorns,” Jon said, and several people chuckled indulgently. “Not nearly enough time to prepare for that.”

“Hm. I enjoy you,” Lady Olenna declared, smiling fondly. “It’s rare to find someone unabashedly kind, even when their tongue is sharp.”

“You’d have liked my twin-sister Larra. She was stern…but she was lovely. Children adored her; they knew where they stood with her…” Jon said, and whatever humour had bubbled up inside him died. He sighed softly, and told Lady Olenna, “It’s the same with you.”

“Your grandfather was the same,” Lady Olenna told him. People rarely spoke about Lord Rickard, even at Winterfell, where he was still in living memory. “I imagine Ned Stark was, too. You have more guile, though I can tell you detest the game.”

“You can’t just kill everyone you disagree with,” Jon grumbled, and there was a touch of disappointment in his voice that made Lady Olenna smirk.

“No matter how tempting. She’s made it that much harder for herself, now,” Lady Olenna mused, and her eyes were sharp, ironic, when she muttered, “The Dragon Queen burns women and babies and brittle old men… People will obey her…they will _endure_ her; but they will wait with baited breath for her demise. And plot to bring it about all the sooner.”

“Do you remember her father?” asked Nymeria Sand, her eyes lowered almost coyly.

“I do. His reign started off promisingly enough. But there were always glimmers,” Lady Olenna said after a moment, her face thoughtful, as if she was peering into the past. “And after Duskendale… He set the precedent at Duskendale, for how he would treat his enemies the rest of his reign… The Ash Meadow, the Lion Culling… I have seen it before. I did not desire the death of children: I desired Cersei’s execution… It won’t work, of course.”

“What?”

“Burning all those Lannisters. Cersei proved the morning of the Sept that she did not care one whit about her kinfolk. Cersei cares about Cersei. Her sons are dead. Prince Doran wisely keeps the little lioness cloistered in the Water Gardens, and refuses to yield her to Daenerys for anything,” Lady Olenna said, nodding respectfully toward the Sands, Prince Doran’s emissaries. “What could Daenerys _possibly_ do to Cersei that would ever hurt her, when Daenerys’ own allies are both wise and cautious, and morally opposed to allowing the butchery of innocent princesses be the consequence of war.” She eyed Jon sharply. “And what is this I hear of an expedition to hunt dead men?”

The Sands exchanged a look; Lord Barahir frowned softly. Ser Davos glanced up, and Theon sighed heavily.

“The only way to convince everyone is to show them. I intend to show Queen Daenerys and Queen Cersei the truth of the thing,” Jon said. “This war of theirs is petty. The real war is in the North. And if we cannot fight, and are defeated…this quarrel between them will cause the world’s ending.”

“To risk being contrary - you have yet to convince the majority of us,” Lady Olenna reminded him. “Lord Varys speaks of an armistice. I do believe I shall focus all my energies on shoring up the strength to attend. I’ve still a few thorns left in me with which to pierce Queen Cersei and make her bleed.”

“Any armistice cannot be about wounding each other,” Jon warned, and Lady Olenna glanced at him shrewdly, the iron tone in his voice making her eyes widen subtly.

“Young man…that is _exactly_ what such an opportunity presents. It’s what they were _created_ for,” Lady Olenna sighed, her smile ironic and tired. “Wounds inflicted with words, not weapons. You can be certain Queen Cersei will find a way to hook her claws under _your_ skin.”

“I’ve a tough pelt, my lady,” Jon said, and Lady Olenna chuckled. “I’m a bastard of the North. I do not forget what I am.” Lady Olenna stared back at him, thinly-veiled insinuation in her gaze: he remembered their conversation regarding the curious timing of Ned’s return to Winterfell - with babies, and a pile of bones belonging to his sister.

“This…venture you speak of,” Ellaria said, gazing at Jon, her dark eyes shrewd. “You will journey beyond the Wall? To snatch one of these… _wights_ of the old legends…”

“Yes, my lady…”

Ellaria glanced over her shoulder at her lover’s older daughters, sensual and elegant as ever. Ellaria was a nobleman’s illegitimate daughter, had been Prince Oberyn’s beloved paramour…had the ear of the Prince of Dorne, and his trust… She was one of his advisors, and agents. Jon was under no illusions that Ellaria and Nymeria weren’t every bit as dangerous - if not more so - than the Red Viper had ever been. Obara was different: She was a warrior, angry and militant.

“Then Dorne will see it done.”

Obara gave a sharp half-bow that managed to appear brutal, telling Jon stoutly, “My spear is yours, Your Grace.”

Hours later, Jon climbed one of the great cliffs, the grey-green grass shivering and brittle underfoot, a tell-tale sign that winter was truly setting in on the island, no matter the warm mists of the Dragonmont. The volcano would best the gentlest frosts and the island’s geography would protect it from the harsh snows of the mainland…but winter had come. One morning, all of Westeros would wake to a blanket of snow, a gleaming grey sky and a forgotten quiet that accompanied the very beginning of winter, when everything became restful, almost tranquil, when it was still new, and wondrous…

Today, there were few clouds, the sky pale blue, and when the wind died down, the sun was surprisingly hot. Instead of heading inside to dress for court, Jon had chosen to hike up the cliff-side for some air, and some much-needed light after so many hours in the mines. He was determined that when he left for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, his ships would set sail for White Harbour, taking with them the last of the obsidian they had managed to mine. All he could do was hope it was enough. Time was running out, and some was better than none; but he could not stay away too much longer.

Daenerys’ return would mark Jon’s departure.

He groaned and climbed up to the topmost part of the cliff, and stopped short, not wanting to startle anything…

A dragon rested, sunning its great wings.

It was the green dragon, smaller than Drogon the Dread but not by much. Its great wings, its armoured reptilian body and its terrifying horned head, were all shades of jade green; its wing-joints, horns and the great spikes that studded its back gleamed like dark-bronze in the sun, and in the light even its wings seemed veined with it.

Jon had never been this close, to any of the great winged beasts. Up close, it was even more monstrous than it appeared in the skies. And yet there was something…mesmerising about it, something deep in the pit of his stomach…a _fondness_ , almost. He found himself close to smiling, awed. _What Larra and Arya wouldn’t have given to see this_ , he thought, not for the first time. _Dragons_ …

What had the Queen named them? Drogon was the black one. She spoke rarely of the white-and-gold one, but Jon thought she had named him for her brother Viserys…Viserion. And the green-and-bronze…’ _I named him for my valiant brother, who died on the green banks of the Trident_ …”

Rhaegal opened his jaws, yawning, and shook his great head, sending a shiver down the spikes lining his spine - _protecting_ his spine. Jon had never been close enough to hear the dragons, and was far too used to Ghost’s silence: but Rhaegal made curious noises, cooing and snapping and purring - neither birdsong nor insects chirping, something reptilian and shrieking and entrancing. It was not a sound Jon had ever heard in nature. Because dragons had been thought lost from the world. Like giants. Like White Walkers.

He jumped, when suddenly Rhaegal turned his great head, and fixed molten gold eyes on him. Jaws still open, Jon saw Rhaegal’s many layers of obsidian-black, dagger-sharp teeth…

Rhaegal stared at him, eyes dancing like embers, and Jon gazed back, shocked and utterly entranced.

Rhaegal flapped his wings, tucking them against his body, and made a soft, thoughtful, purring hum that gurgled almost playfully in the back of his throat. His neck extended, tucking his body in close - like a cat ready to pounce, he thought, his tail even lashing lazily - Jon heard Rhaegal sniff the air around him. Rhaegal _purred_ , the sound so strangely gentle…a lullaby, almost, and he blinked its golden eyes lazily, before bumping his great leathery nose against Jon’s chest.

Jon stumbled back, but caught his footing. Rhaegal nudged him again, making that strange, beautiful sound, and Jon realised he was smiling as he reached his hand out, slowly, to stroke down between Rhaegal’s eyes, as he might give a horse affection. More of those soft, curious purrs, and Rhaegal seemed to sigh, his enormous armoured body relaxing, closing his eyes as if lulled by the barest of contact from Jon.

Lord Tyrion had told Jon the story of releasing Rhaegal and Viserion from the makeshift dragon-pit beneath the Great Pyramid in Meereen…how he believed, from extensive reading on the subject, that dragons were more intelligent than men… Lord Tyrion had _talked_ to the terrifyingly beautiful beasts, gently telling them the story of his childhood heartbreak over discovering that the last dragons had died a century ago, and thus he would not likely be receiving a dragon for his name-day gift. _Affection for their friends; fury for their enemies_ … The dragons had offered him the collars bolted around their necks, and he had freed them. Lord Tyrion believed they had understood every word.

“Hello, Rhaegal,” Jon said softly, stroking his knuckles over the tough hide between his molten eyes. “What my sisters wouldn’t give to meet you… They spent all their childhoods, dreaming they were soaring through the clouds on the back of a dragon, pretending they were Daemon the Rogue Prince and Baela Targaryen… They’re gone now…and here you are… There’s something excruciatingly ironic about that…”

Rhaegal purred, rustling his enormous wings. A screech shattered the air, and Rhaegal snapped his head around, watchful and tense, and Jon followed the dragon’s gaze. The shriek had come from the white-and-gold Viserion, wheeling overhead; he shrieked and called, as Rhaegal cooed and grumbled and bumped his long neck against Jon, and the dragon snorted, flapping its great wings, and Jon ducked as he shot into the sky, buffeting Jon about.

Rhaegal took to the skies, soaring after his brother…

Because their mother had returned home.

Jon saw the ships nearing the bay; Rhaegal and Viserion soared through the air, to circle and bank and wheel overhead, falling into formation with the third, the largest of them, Drogon. And on his back he undoubtedly carried Daenerys.

She had returned.

Jon frowned, and watched the dragons swoop and soar through the air.

Her return meant several things. His departure, yes. But also, the end of his nights spent with Nora: They had both agreed. Jon did not like the risk to Alynore to let it continue under the Queen’s nose, when she was…when the Queen was who she was, and would not react well to finding out Jon favoured another.

It meant Daenerys was now at Dragonstone, to coerce into an armistice with Queen Cersei. With Daenerys’ return meant Lord Tyrion’s, too. Jon was never quite sure whether he should trust Lord Varys, but Jon respected Lord Tyrion. Jon wondered very much how the Lord Hand felt about his queen burning his family alive, and if his feelings would hold any sway over Jon’s proposal.

Was Daenerys any better than Cersei, after what Lady Olenna had dubbed the ‘Lion Culling’?

Jon strode into his chambers, intending to strip and bathe, and prolong the inevitable - he could not _avoid_ the Queen; she would be expecting everyone there…to congratulate her on her victory. He dreaded the Queen’s outlook on it. Because how could she think it was anything but an atrocity? A barbarous war-crime.

“I saw the ships,” Nora said gently. She was reclined on his bed, looking sad, but she gave him a soft smile that spoke of acceptance. He sighed, striding over to her, and she helped him out of his shirt. She trailed her fingers over his scars, pressed her lips to his skin, and sighed, leaning her brow against his chest. “I thought we’d have longer.”

“So did I,” Jon said softly, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. He reached up, to cup her face. She gazed up at him, miserable. The last few weeks had been…wonderful, Jon couldn’t deny it: His time with Nora…intimate, gentle and _companionable_ … He had relaxed with her, enjoyed her, and more importantly, he had _allowed_ himself to be relaxed, to enjoy her, to embrace the strange, gentle intimacy that had cocooned them… He had relished…having _someone_. Not just someone with whom to share his bed: To greet him with a smile at the end of the day, to sift her hands through his hair when he was tired, who hummed gently as she sewed between bouts of their bed-play…who gently coaxed him to confide in her, without doing anything at all but _listen_ … He had enjoyed being no-one but himself - flawed and tired. It was almost a strange relief to learn that someone could enjoy him when everything was stripped bare; when they were together, he wasn’t the King in the North. He was _Jon_. Just Jon, and Nora didn’t need him to be anyone else. When he was grumpy, she was patient; when she was upset, he quietly held her and let her cry, the only person in the world she could break down in front of, for whom she did not have to be strong, and composed and elegant.

Their time together, limited though it had been…it had been different than his time with Ygritte, but no less extraordinary, for different reasons. He had loved Ygritte. He adored Nora, knew he would care for her the rest of his life.

Nora reached up, cradling his cheek in her hand, gently stroking with her thumb, sorrowful but accepting. She leaned in, and kissed him, slow and torturous, and Jon tucked her close, savouring it. His tunic fell to the floor; Nora made quick work of his breeches, and they joined together one last time, slow and agonising, deeply passionate, not telling but _showing_ just what they meant to each other, Nora’s legs locked around his waist, her fingers tangled in his hair, as he cupped her breasts - she winced softly - and kissed her throat, capturing her mouth as she moaned deeply and arched her back, digging in her heels as he thrust into her, and gurgled a soft laugh of ecstasy as she came down from her orgasm, her thighs quivering, sweat shimmering delicately on her brow, her lips swollen, and Jon groaned, burying his head in her neck, the scent of her soft hair pushing him further as he came inside her.

For a few moments, they lingered, tangled and intimate, savouring the last time they would trail their fingers over warm skin, preening against each other, drawing each other close as they drifted off to sleep, warm and relaxed.

Jon sighed, as Nora slowly sat up. Her long hair tumbled down her back; he reached out to brush his fingers over it, sweeping it away from her face, over her shoulder. Her pale-green eyes were soft and sad as she gazed down at him, her lips still swollen from his kiss. She propped herself up on a taut arm, leaning down to give him a tender, most heart-breaking kiss. He reached out, wanting to hold her close, but ended up only trailing his fingers along her jaw, and she pushed back, climbing off the bed.

He followed, and helped her dress. They didn’t speak: She left, pausing at the door only long enough to give Jon a look that emphasised her wish - that they had more time; that neither of them would be quite as lonely as they had been before… But they would, Jon knew it. He thought of the nights to come, alone in the interminable quiet, forever on his guard - even with Sansa…especially with Sansa. Her red her glimmered in his memory, the sweet smile on her lips as they stood gazing out over the godswood, and she had told him that a white raven had arrived from the Citadel, “ _Winter has come_.” “ _Father always promised, didn’t he_?”

Father. Their father.

Before she had appeared at Castle Black, grubby and cold, Jon hadn’t truly thought about Sansa in years. And ever since she had appeared…he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Every night, he went to bed sick with worry for her; and every morning, he woke hoping the day would be better than the last for her sake. They had never been close as children: and to go from famine to an oasis of Sansa, her vibrant hair, her delicate scent, her ferocity gentled by elegance…

 _Father_.

Lady Olenna’s words had wheedled their way into Jon’s mind, and in quiet moments like this, Jon had found himself turning them over and over. He insinuation that Ned Stark…was possibly _not_ his father by blood, but his uncle…that Jon was the child of Lyanna Stark by Rhaegar Targaryen…in which case, Robb and Sansa and Arya and Bran and Rickon had _never_ been his brothers and sisters… They were his _cousins_. And that…was devastating, even as something in the back of his mind, and the pit of his hurt heart, sparked into an ember of warmth and _something_ \- not delight…eagerness.

To be, not Ned Stark’s child…but the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna… It sounded impossible. Fanciful, even… And yet…and yet Jon had spent many nights - with Nora curled up against him, her warmth soothing and giving him a sense of protection from his own thoughts…and yet…it added up.

He hated that Lady Olenna had whispered that poison in his ear. That it was the only thing he could think about sometimes, especially when he was hacking away at the obsidian caves. Because if she was right, then Ned Stark was not his father by blood, and he had lied to Jon his entire life…had put Jon through torment - no. Ned Stark’s wife had been sure to torment him all his life, punishing him for ever having the audacity to be born… And worse…Ned had known that Jon’s mother, whom he and Larra had yearned to know since they were old enough to understand that Lady Catelyn was _not_ their mother and considered it a stain on her honour that they had once wanted her to be…was dead. Had been dead all their lives.

_Next time we see each other, I’ll tell you about your mother…_

_You may not have my name, but you have my blood_ …

Jon scowled, and put thoughts of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar and Sansa and Nora out of his mind…he really tried…

But when he strode into the court a few hours later, he was in a dark mood.

It was not made better by what he found. The court was quiet, and Ser Davos caught Jon’s eye with a scowl.

Before the jagged throne stood a line of Unsullied soldiers. Dothraki paced around the court, as they always did, but their eyes - as did everyone else’s - constantly flicked back to the Unsullied… He strode over to Ser Davos, who stood near the chaise on which Lord Tyrion was drinking profusely, propped up against Lady Tisseia, his head resting against her breasts. Lord Tyrion raised his eyes to Jon over the rim of his wine-glass, and it was all Jon needed to know of Lord Tyrion’s thoughts on all that had occurred since he left this castle.

The Unsullied guarded little girls, one for each.

They ranged from very young ladies to older toddlers. All of them were exceptionally beautiful, even at their young ages: Some had green eyes, some blue. Some had froths of natural curls that billowed like clouds around their shoulders, others had shimmering cascades of straight blonde locks. Some had soft baby-blonde hair, and others had hair nearly as pale as the Queen’s. One, the youngest, had tightly coiled curls that bounced as she glanced around the hall, her eyes bright, curious, but not red-rimmed with tears like the others’ were. She sucked her thumb, and swung gently where she stood, the hem of her dress whispering against the stone floor. Beside her, one of the middling girls had a stain on her golden dress; and each of them seemed cold, and grubby, their hair rather unkempt, their faces wan, smeared with ash and tear-stained. One of the older girls, the one with froths of pale-gold curls surrounding her slender face and clear amber eyes, was weeping silently. They all appeared to be shivering - with cold or dread, Jon could not say. Only one of them wore a cloak; one of them kept glancing at the platters of food laid out for the court to pick over, her lower-lip trembling, and she couldn’t help a moan of hunger pass her lips.

How many days since the Lion Culling?

Lord Tyrion finished his glass; Tisseia was ready with the decanter to refill it, her dark eyes scanning the girls, her expression wary but discerning. She flicked her gaze up at Jon for a heartbeat, and he frowned, falling into place beside Ser Davos.

A musician plucked at his lute, filling the chamber with strange foreign music, and the soft whisper of silk and leather against stone made them alert to the new arrival.

Queen Daenerys had spent the hours since her return languishing in a bath, washing and brushing her hair until it shone like polished silver in the candlelight. She sat on her jagged throne, in a Qartheen gown of translucent sunset-orange silk glimmering with gold. The gown bared one of her breasts, as all her Qartheen gowns did; she wore her hair shimmering over her shoulders, tickling her bare nipple, and an extra braid had been added to her hairstyle, wrapped from ear to ear like a circlet and entwined with golden threads. Her arms glinted with gold; around her throat she wore a jewelled collar. Her smile was radiant, as she climbed the steps and settled on the jagged throne.

It happened in the space of a heartbeat.

One moment, the Queen was smiling down at the little Lannister lionesses…the next, one of the middle girls had flung herself away from her cousins and the Unsullied who guarded them, raced up the steps and launched herself at Daenerys, spitting and scratching, her screams becoming higher and more shrill, repeating, “ _THAT IS NOT YOURS! THAT IS MY MOTHER’S. MY MOTHER’S NECKLACE! GIVE IT BACK GIVE IT BACK GIVE. IT. BACK NOOOOOOW NOW noooooOOOOOOOOWWW!!!_ ”

As one, the Unsullied engaged their weapons to protect their Queen.

No sooner had they aimed their spears at the girl than Jon had already climbed the steps toward the Queen - and turned, unsheathing Long Claw in a flash, to level at the throat of the nearest Unsullied commander that had dived forward, spear raised, expression horrifyingly neutral.

A few of the Lannister cousins whimpered, their eyes on their cousin. The baby glanced up uncertainly at the one in the red gown, the eldest of them. The amber-eyed girl continued to weep silently, as if she had no idea what was happening around her, numbed by her grief.

“You will not harm her,” Jon warned, his men glaring, weapons in their hands - and those of Theon, and Lord Barahir, even elegant Nymeria Sand, a flash of silver in her palm, her sister’s twin-bladed spear poised at the throat of a bloodrider who had raised his wicked barbed whip. Ellaria Sand shielded her young daughters, Nora stood rigid beside her grandmother, a hand on her cousin’s shoulders, warning them to remain silent. The tension in the court was palpable, everyone waiting with baited breath to see what happened next - as the screams of the little girl and the grunts and cries of the Queen crumpling on her throne echoed off the unnerving black walls, throwing back eerie red-black light and echoing spine-tingling screams. “Lower your spears.”

As Daenerys whimpered under the onslaught of a child’s vicious punches and the slashes of her tiny, sharp fingernails, her ears nearly bleeding from the girl’s shrieks - becoming more and more upset, more high-pitched, unintelligible, her voice brittle and heartbroken - the Unsullied cast black looks among themselves behind the shadows of their helmets, but did lower their spears.

Long Claw scratching at the throat of the Unsullied - Jon thought his name was Grey Worm - Jon slid his glance past the commander, to the line of Lannisters groaning with dread and grief. He caught the eye of the eldest, and asked gently, “What is your cousin’s name?”

“Calanthe, Your Grace,” the girl said hoarsely.

“Step back,” Jon told Grey Worm, who glowered, and made a show of it, but took three steps back, until he was no longer on the steps. His hand twitched for the spear on the floor. Theon kicked it out of reach, and Jon sheathed Long Claw.

“Calanthe,” he said, his voice low and gentle. He approached the throne, wrapping his hand around the little girl’s tight fist. She had the other wrapped around the intricate gold collar Daenerys wore; there was evidence of her fingernails, scratching at Daenerys’ neck to prise the collar away. “That’s enough now. Let go.” He reached out, and gently clasped her wrist, stroking the back of her hand. He leaned over them both, levelling his gaze on Calanthe. Her eyes were streaming, her face grimy with ash - the ash of her burned family - but her expression was warped with a seething, white-hot rage, and she sobbed as she let go of the necklace. Jon took her by the waist and lifted her off the queen, clamping her to his hip.

Daenerys slumped on her throne, utterly bewildered - bleeding, from Calanthe’s claws, her sharp fangs puncturing Daenerys’ arm where she had thrown it up to defend herself from the little girl’s slaps and hits and gouges. Daenerys was shaking, staring at the girl in utter horror. She raised her purple eyes to Jon, relief oozing from them - and appreciation, that it was _him_ who had come to her defence. Her expression faltered, as she saw the pitiless glare on Jon’s face, his gentle but immovable hold on Calanthe’s waist, hugging her to him…and behind him, the Unsullied commander frozen, his spear useless on the ground where he had dropped it, Greyjoys and Northmen and Sandsnakes baring their weapons against _her_ commanders and _kos_.

“The collar,” Jon said, his voice commanding. Daenerys blinked. She stared at him. After a few moments, she raised trembling white hands, unfastening the jewelled collar, and handed it to Jon.

It was exquisite, and heavy, made of bright gold, figured into a dozen intricate chrysanthemum flowers set with vibrant citrines, with delicate filigree and a fringe of small pale-gold pearls that gleamed in the candlelight, swaying with every movement. He weighed it in his hand, watched the candlelight gleam off the gold, the pearls, made the citrines glow like Rhaegal’s eyes…

He handed it to Calanthe, and she tucked the jewel against her chest, her head dropping heavily against his shoulder as her entire body shook with silent sobs.

“Sshhh,” Jon murmured, rubbing the little girl’s back. He caught sight of the Queen’s interpreter. “Lady Missandei…I trust the belongings of the girls’ families will be returned to them?”

Missandei flicked a glance at the Queen, swallowed, and nodded. “At once, Your Grace.”

“Lady Tisseia…would you be so good as to lead the ladies to Lord Tyrion’s chambers?” Jon asked sombrely, aware of Lord Tyrion’s eyes glinting in the candlelight, watching everything from behind his wine-glass. Lady Tisseia smiled at Jon, perhaps with relief, eyeing Calanthe in his arms. She disentangled herself from Lord Tyrion, and approached Jon; her smile was gentle and earnest as Jon transferred the sobbing girl into her arms. “I believe they’re in need of a bath, some good hot soup and sleep.” Jon sighed, and walked over to the other girls. The Unsullied saw the look on his face, and took two steps back. “My ladies, this is your uncle’s companion, Lady Tisseia.”

Calanthe crying in her arms, Tisseia pressed a soft kiss against her head, and offered one of the little girls her hand. “Come along, little ones,” she said, her voice coaxing and soft. “Let’s get you settled.”

The eldest, holding the hand of the baby, fell into step behind Lady Tisseia, who started to sing softly in bastard Valyrian, gently rocking Calanthe in her arms, and the sound of her voice lingered on the air as the golden-haired girls disappeared into the shadowy corridors beyond.

Daenerys swiped her fingertips over her throat; she stared at the blood smeared on them. Barely more than a drop, but her lips parted, her eyes wide. “That child should be whipped.”

Jon started, turned. Stared at the Queen, torn between incredulity and anger.

“You murder her mother and parade around in her jewels, and the _child_ should be _whipped_?” he growled dangerously. “You _mock_ their grief… What were you thinking?”

“What was I thinking?” Daenerys blinked, sitting up straighter, as maids fussed over her. “I have fewer enemies than I did a moon-turn ago.”

Jon stared, his lips parting. And his tone was as blunt, humourless and accusatory as he meant it to be: “Which gave Drogon the most trouble? The young women heavy with child, the brittle old men or the _infants_?! This was not an act of war. This was an act of _murder_. _You BURNED little children_.”

Everyone in the hall jumped at the sudden bellow. Jon’s voice echoed off the black stone, fractured and amplified. People exchanged uneasy looks, glad they were not the one to have given voice to their thoughts, though relieved someone had. They were not alone in thinking it.

Daenerys looked taken aback for a moment, staring at Jon as if seeing him for the first time, curious, unsettled and intrigued by what she saw. And flustered, almost…abashed, as her purple eyes drifted around the room, found faces downturned, eyes avoiding hers. Grim faces. Hostility that reminded her of the Ash Meadow, her enemies on their knees glowering at her…

She raised her chin, but her voice wavered ever so slightly, as she repeated, “They were enemies.”

Jon scoffed, his sneer a terrible blow to Daenerys as she gazed at him, horror settling into her face. Missandei lingered uncertainly, her face pinched and conflicted, glancing back at her Queen, flinching, and turning her gaze away to the floor…the way she always had when waiting for her Master’s orders, eyes down, shoulders low, utterly submissive - dehumanised.

Missandei had never looked at her like that, with anything but admiration and respect in her dark eyes, warmth radiating from her smile. Appreciative, adoring.

“You burned them because your pride was wounded that brave men would rather die than bend to your will… You burned them because they were _vulnerable_ …and because you _could_ ,” Jon snarled. “Because you _wanted_ to. And now you’ve given Cersei all the weapons she needs to defeat you. The Mad King’s Daughter will burn Westeros - _down to the last child_ \- to become Queen of the ashes!”

His voice had risen: It was not normal for Jon Snow to raise his voice, especially in anger.

And it was for that reason it resonated with everyone, especially the Queen. “You’ve just become the single most reviled and feared person in Westeros,” Jon told her coldly. He levelled his gaze on her, unflinching, cold and accusing. “And there’s nothing like a common enemy to unite people.”

Hours later, Jon groaned, pausing in the torch-lit corridor to knead the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“She won’t forget you shaming her before her entire court,” said a voice, and Jon glanced around. Lord Tyrion, drinking from a wine-skin, leaned against the wall, just inside the warm glow of the torchlight.

“Do you really think such a person as her could ever be _shamed_ by what she thinks is the right course of action?” Jon asked grimly. They had spent hours going back and forth, arguing over Jon’s intentions to go North and fetch a wight - and his expectations that Queen Daenerys would attend an armistice that her Lord Hand would take part in arranging on Jon’s behalf.

He expected it.

Jon did not ask.

He was beyond that, now. He set expectations; and left it to Daenerys to meet them.

He was too angry with her remorselessness over the Lion Culling, her tasteless behaviour earlier, draped in the jewels of the dead girls’ mothers...that she believed the child deserved a whipping - Jon flinched, and thought of Larra with her ‘ruby ribbons’ from Queen Cersei… The thought that Calanthe Lannister would likely have been skewered by the Unsullied commander, had Jon not stepped in.

That troubled him the most.

Could the Unsullied - could _Daenerys_ \- not distinguish between a grief-stricken, wrathful, hurting child, and a full-grown, adult, armed enemy?

Would Daenerys have even _blinked_ if the Unsullied _had_ skewered Calanthe before her very eyes?

Jon glared down at Lord Tyrion, who had chosen to support her, to not just follow but guide her way back to Westeros. “No, she won’t forget it, but she will ignore everything I said.”

Tyrion sighed heavily, shaking his head dolefully. “Those little girls are strangers to me…and I frighten them. The Imp. The monster who murdered the Old Lion, their great protector, Tywin Lannister, the dread of Westeros.”

“Let them know you,” Jon advised him gently. “You’re all they have now.”

“Poor dears.”

“Privileged,” Jon corrected, eyeing Tyrion sombrely. Even in the time Jon had been on Dragonstone, he had observed Lord Tyrion drinking more and more. That said a lot about Lord Tyrion’s state of mind, that he would rather numb himself than go through his day sober. “Larra appreciated your quality within days of your arrival at Winterfell; I learned it at Castle Black; and Sansa grew to respect and admire you. You’re so much _better_ than what your family tried to convince the world you are.”

“It’s a good thing it’s dark,” Lord Tyrion said, his beard twitching. “I haven’t blushed so much since my first brothel.”

“I mean it,” Jon said earnestly, and that probably made Lord Tyrion even more uncomfortable. “It’s a crass thing to say but you’re worth more than all those Lannisters combined.”

“Especially as they’re dead.”

“Lord Tyrion…take the compliment for what it is.”

“I’m not used to receiving them.”

“I know. But I mean it. You’re a clever man - but you also have empathy. You’re not going to let those girls suffer. The same way you guarded Sansa,” Jon reminded him, and Lord Tyrion’s eyes glinted as he gazed up at Jon. “Because they’re innocent, and it is in your power to protect them.” Jon sighed, rubbing his face, exhausted. He could not wait to leave…even facing down wights and White Walkers was better than _this_. He gazed down at Lord Tyrion, and asked quietly, “How are you going to protect them from _her_?

Lord Tyrion sighed softly, shaking his head. He looked utterly despondent… _lost_.

As if he was in completely over his head, and had no idea how he had come to be. As if things had completely overtaken him, and he wasn’t sure what was up or down anymore. He grimaced, and took a long draw from his wine-skin.

“They can’t stay here.”


	27. Heart and Henge

**Valyrian Steel**

_27_

_Heart and Henge_

* * *

Obsidian was finicky. Don’t give it enough heat, it turned brittle: Forge it too hot, it was the hardest material in the world, nigh on impossible to reshape.

It was all in the heat. Heat had created it, melting stone over thousands of years, so said learned maesters. And an ingenious maester who had discovered how to record temperature using mercury would say that the key to forging obsidian lay in the temperature of the fire into which the obsidian was placed to be melted down and forged.

The Children knew of no such thing. There was no _temperature_ , only the fire, and their crude stone implements. No true _tools_ as blacksmiths and craftsmen would understand them. Just a rock to bash the hunk of obsidian into smaller pieces; a blackened ironstone saucer in which to place the obsidian; the fire; and whatever spear or dagger-hilt they wished to bond with the obsidian. Any wood worked, but obsidian bonded best, for a reason completely unknown, with ironwood or weirwood. As weirwood was no longer in abundance, they would have to suffice with what they had on hand - and the felling of parts of the wolfswood, though it made Larra’s heart ache to see it done, was instrumental in forging weapons fit to fight the Night King’s armies.

The castle was never still, and today it was especially manic: As many arrows as could be fletched were stacked in woven baskets as groups of small boys, elderly men and women chatted and sang and laughed, their fingers working with remarkable dexterity. If they were not engaged in fletching, other groups were crafting spears, taught by the women of the Free Folk who led lessons in wielding the finished weapon itself.

Arrows, spears…for those more adept at fighting, it fell to the forges to craft weapons people could actually _use_ , swords and cudgels, maces and axes, halberds, falchions, flails and morningstars, tridents - Meera had hers a ‘frog spear’. The smiths had no problem whatsoever with forging any such weapons: And they were at an advantage, all the North emptied to Winterfell, which meant every castle and holdfast’s blacksmiths and armourers had converged on the forges of Winterfell. There were more than enough men to complete the work, and they all had the skill to forge the weapons.

They had never worked with obsidian before.

Only one person in the entirety of the North knew how to forge it. Because she had been taught. The Children had passed on all their learning, their songs and their skills.

It was quite something to see, and it attracted quite a bit of attention - first from Lady Sansa, who was curious, and then the Knights and Northmen and Free Folk who came to ask for specific weapons - as Larra held the forges enraptured.

There was only one way to ensure the tempered obsidian was strong enough to endure. And that was to pay close attention to the fire.

With her hair bound up in braids, and her gauntlets gleaming, Larra’s long, pale fingers flashed in the firelight as the smiths and armourers snickered. She had produced a large chunk of stone, and began smashing the obsidian to pieces.

“Doesn’t have to be stone,” she said softly, not looking up; the fire before her made love to her fine features, made her eyes glow like purple stones. “But this is how I was taught. The obsidian must be crushed to pebbles, and then…a single layer of the stuff, spread out over the dish, so that all of the obsidian is heated evenly…” She gathered up the obisidan in her palms, sprinkling it over the ironstone dish resting in the fire, the heat shimmering in the air. Casting a glance at the obsidian, she readied her mould - not made of steel, but of ironwood, neatly carved with ten arrowheads.

The obsidian started to hiss, and then to melt.

“It should start to look like treacle,” Larra murmured. Despite the noise of the courtyard beyond, she did not have to raise her voice: She was surrounded by men, ranging from young apprentices to grizzled white-beards, and they were all enraptured, watching her work. Her unhurried calm, the purposeful movements of her long, pale fingers, her ease around the great forge, her sensibleness, the simple clarity with which she explained everything, and her subtle confidence made her mesmerising to watch - they had started laughing as she bashed the obsidian with a rock, but quickly fell silent, watching. She did not stir the obsidian; she used a poker to nudge the sides of the stone dish so that the melting obsidian - which did indeed look temptingly like treacle - swirled idly around, a viscous material that had an entrancing sheen to it, every colour of the firelight reflected seemingly from within the liquid itself, a hint of its origins.

“You don’t want to stir it,” Larra warned. “Poke anything in there, it’ll be bonded fast. You don’t want to use it yet, especially at this heat. See the tiny white sparks rising from the edges of the dish? That’s tiny bubbles releasing from the still-melting rocks… You’ll have chunks of obsidian spoiling your weapon, and the obsidian itself will set brittle. Give it a cross look and it’ll shatter.”

“You know this?” one of the old men asked, his white hair glowing like a septa’s wimple around his shoulders. “How?”

“Practise,” Larra said, pointing to her armoured vest, the direwolves stitched in thousands of tiny obsidian rings, her shoulders dripping with the stuff.

“You forged those?”

“Fiddly and time-consuming - but worth it,” Larra said, glancing around the men. “This stuff’s worth far more than gold. Not only does it kill wights and White Walkers, but it stops the Others’ ice-weapons from penetrating through. I wore these stitched to a bearskin vest under my furs - I should’ve been skewered, but the obsidian stopped the blade. I was bruised, not gutted.”

“And…you did this, every time you made that ring-mail?” another man asked, frowning.

“I did,” Larra said. “These are the work of thousands of hours. I can tell you, all I know about forging obsidian I’ve learned through experience. See how the obsidian’s starting to smoke?”

They looked, and some peered closer, while the apprentices jerked their heads back, as the glimmering opalescent surface of the liquid smoked - and caught alight. First orange, then warm yellow flames…bright hot white…pale blue, and then…

“When it reaches purple, _that_ is when it is at the perfect time to start working with,” Larra said. “You can pour it immediately, into arrowheads or dagger moulds… But if you want to create something truly remarkable out of it, you can. You can pour it, shape it, take hammer and tongs to it. As long as you give it time to melt properly, you’ve the time to work with it, before it starts to cool and set. If you’re working on something like a Morningstar or a mace or a trident, you can return the obsidian to the flames as you would steel - make sure the flame burns purple before you start to work with it again, or it’ll all be for naught. But _don’t_ dunk it into a barrel of water - the obsidian will explode on contact with the cold water, and you and the barrel with it.”

“It can cause that much damage?”

“Oh, yes,” Larra nodded. “People call this stuff dragonglass, after all. Forged by fire, volatile…but enduring. Temper it the right way, these weapons will last as long as any Valyrian steel sword… Any questions?”

She organised the forges. Apprentices emptied the crates and started the process of crushing the obsidian: the smiths took turns preparing the obsidian, with men who had the specific role of checking the obsidian was being heated to the correct temperature - the ‘purple-phase’, they called it. The smiths took charge of making arrowheads, spearheads and daggers; and the more experienced armourers were charged with forging weapons fit for the nobility trained to wield them. At Winterfell, obsidian would replace good castle-forged steel - at least for this one battle.

And alongside those men, some of the smiths had to be set aside to continue working with steel. There were still things around Winterfell - things for the siege preparations, and the everyday running of the castle - that required steelwork.

And in that forge, Larra had quietly placed her _designated survivors_. Skilled armourers, apprentices, seasoned blacksmiths, and a few who had started to forge obsidian and done so with meticulous attention to detail, making her take note: They worked the regular forge, and in the back of her mind, Larra had a thought to keep those men back from the fighting. If the Night King was defeated, and some of them had managed to survive, then a complete team able to take over the forge in a moment’s notice would be beneficial.

They had to think about what came _after_ the Night King.

He could only kill them.

Daenerys Targaryen intended to enslave them all to her will.

Larra sighed, her eyes smarting as she left the overwhelming heat of the forge, glad of the cold and the light of the brittle winter sun. It was a relatively fine day, after almost six days of continuous ice-sleet and rain and _cold_ that had seen the courtyard frozen solid. Men had gone about with axes and tridents to break the ice and make it safe underfoot, scattering salt sent by Lord Manderly from the Saltpans, crushing gravel to give them purchase on the slick, ancient stones: Livestock had been moved inside, and two unfortunate people had been found frozen solid.

“Larra…”

Bran, wheeled across the courtyard by one of two dedicated guards, smiled softly to Larra.

“Are you headed to the godswood?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Sansa?”

“Inside with the ladies,” Bran said, his eyes twinkling. “Sewing and singing…they need a new song… Larra, it’s time. You’ve put it off for far too long.” Larra watched him carefully, and gave him a warning look. And Bran gazed at her, mournful and almost desperate, “I can’t go down there. Can’t see them.” He glanced down at his wheeled chair, looking so like the frustrated little boy who had woken from his long sleep, broken, and aching to go about and run and play with his brother, and spar with swords in the courtyard and tumble about in the autumn leaves in the godswood, and climb the stairs, and push himself out of bed… “Light their candles for me?”

Larra sighed, dread settling in the pit of her stomach. She eyed the guard. “Go, fetch yourself something to eat. I’ll take Bran to the heart-tree. Come and find him later.”

“Yes, my lady,” said the guard, bowing courteously, and left, leaving Larra rather unsettled. _My lady_ … People had started calling her that, though she wasn’t one. Whatever Jon was, Larra was still a bastard born of the North…or so people had always been led to believe by Ned Stark. And yet, they addressed her as _my lady_ and curtsied or bowed at her approach. It had a little less to do with who Jon was than it did what Larra got up to around the castle. She was a leader; she organised everything; she always had an answer or solution - or knew who to ask for an answer or solution. People came to her, sometimes for reassurance, sometimes for guidance, but always…they listened patiently for her advice, and took it. That was the strangest thing. Larra had had to fight her entire life for all she had - her education, her place in the family with her brothers and sisters - and no matter how much she did, how high she had raised Robb with her actions…she would always only ever have been his bastard half-sister, despised and distrusted by his mother, disdained by the bannermen who could never forgive her birth.

To be not only accepted but respected…that was a heady thing, for someone like her. And she had earned it.

Larra pushed Bran into the godswood. The ice-sleet had not done much damage - the godswood had withstood thousands of years of winters, after all, unchanged, enduring… It was tranquil, and fine; the sun shone, making the snow shimmer, and the ice frozen on the trees glittered like hundreds of thousands of diamonds strung on silver. There was nothing quite as beautiful as the North in winter, Larra thought - something Father used to say. But Benjen had once told Larra that in spring, all of the moors surrounding Winterfell were carpeted with wildflowers beyond imagining.

“You want me to go down there?” Larra prompted grimly, as she settled Bran beneath the heart-tree. The scarlet leaves gleamed, as if they had been trapped inside the purest crystal; instead of rustling together, they clinked and tinkled in the gentle wind, and here and there Larra heard a patter - the ice slowly melting in the sunshine.

“Yes,” Bran said softly. “You cannot delay it any longer, though I know you would rather go the rest of your life without having to go down there again…” Bran squinted up at her. “They’re all down there, Larra. Just waiting for you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“You do not fear the dead,” Bran said softly, his face understanding.

“You’re wrong,” Larra told him quietly. “My fear kept us both alive.”

“Fear of the Night King’s soldiers…” Bran stared up at her. “Why should you fear your family?”

“Rickon’s down there. He’s down there…because of _me_ ,” Larra said, clenching her jaw.

“The Ironborn would have skewered him long before, had it not been for you,” Bran said softly. “They would have gutted him at Craster’s Keep, had it not been for you… In the Land of Always-Winter, he would have died…and he would have killed you - it would have been the death of us all.”

Larra stared at Bran, uncertain…was he fabricating some possible future, diverted by her actions…to soften the sting of guilt and shame that pervaded her entire body, and snapped in the back of her mind every time she relaxed toward deep, untroubled sleep?

“I’m not lying to you,” Bran said softly, gazing up at her. “It would be easier to fabricate some untruth to put you at ease… You made a choice. The possible outcomes were whittled down. Without Rickon, we stood a chance. And you knew that from the very beginning. You did the right thing in sending Rickon away: Smalljon Umber made the wrong choice in betraying him. Now both are dead; and we are alive, because Rickon did not die lost in the Land of Always-Winter, separated from us, to turn…to find us and slaughter us in the storms… Larra…you’re the only one who can do it, you know that. You need to go down there. The Children taught you for a reason.”

“I know,” Larra said heavily. There was something comforting in the fact that she had been… _necessary_ , that her time in beneath the weirwood had not been wasted, that she had not been merely a vessel, a carrier - the one who carried Brandon the Broken. The Children had been preparing her, for this very day.

“Go, now,” Bran said softly. “Don’t think on it. I have a skin of stout, some oatcakes and a truckle of mature Cerwyn cheese. Take them and go.”

Larra sighed, eyeing the provisions Bran had hidden, tucked in his furs, and took them. She turned and walked away. By an ancient oak, she spied a flicker of colour. A weirbird, tugging at the tufted grasses and moss beneath the tree, protected from the worst of the ice-sleet by the tree’s massive canopy. And beyond the weirbird…nodding hellebores, some of them still dusted with snow, others gleaming with ice. They were hardy flowers, the winter rose. Through sleet and snow and ice, they endured, with their simple, broad petals and frilly throats, and gorgeous variations of colour - from pure snow-white to delicate pink or green to the deepest, velvety purple-black, and every hue in between. Diverted, Larra wandered over; the weirbird paused, hopped, turned to stare at her with beady black eyes. It chirped, fluffed its wings, and went about foraging for worms and slugs. Not too many to be found now, but in the shelter of the godswood’s great canopy, the birds stood a greater chance of finding food.

She stooped, trailing her fingers over the pristine winter roses. The finest, she left where it was, that it could go to seed and bring forth more flowers later. She picked the second-best, a many-layered hybrid with pure white petals soft as silk and a throat of delicate lavender.

White and purple… Silver-white hair and violet eyes, Larra’s eyes… _Rhaegar_.

She plucked the flower at the stem, and focused on the many immaculate petals as she trudged through the godswood. Distracting herself with thoughts of Rhaegar, and the locket heavy against her breast under her clothing, she barely noticed when she approached the entrance to the crypt. The direwolf statues had been replaced with new ones, uncannily accurate representations of Ghost. Workmen were grunting as they installed a new door - the brief one-time occupants of the castle before it had been reclaimed had installed a door engraved with the flayed man. Sansa had had it ripped off its hinges, and the bones of the Leech Lord burned and scattered in the wolfswood. The new door was made of ironwood, plain, but banded with obsidian. The workmen were being especially careful; the obsidian bands were decorated with obsidian spikes. To keep the dead out.

Every external door was going to be outfitted with the same, every gate, every window and murder-hole, and the battlements were going to be similarly armoured.

Larra was of the opinion, and those Sansa had consulted agreed, that given all they knew of the enemy, the best chance they had was to fortify, and defend - not _attack_. They did not have the men.

But they could be clever, and cunning, and use the one thing they had: Winterfell.

So use it they would, concerting all their efforts into turning Winterfell from a fortress into a weapon in and of itself.

Whenever Larra had sat in counsel with Sansa and the Northmen, and the Knights of the Vale, planning their defences and some of their strategy when the enemy finally showed itself, they went over the fact that the Night King had no archers, no siege towers, no scaling ladders or catapults or battering-rams. It was the one thing they went back to, when it all seemed too overwhelming: It was the one advantage they had.

They had long accepted that the Night King’s army would contain the ragged corpses of giants - apparently, the last of the giants, Wun Wun, had fought beside Jon and Tormund Giantsbane during the Battle of the Bastards: The Valemen had seen his body. They _believed_ … And there would be mammoths, shadowcats, bears - every manner of creature lethal in life would now be horrifying in death. Giants, mammoths, all the beasts of the True North…but no siege weapons. No true cavalry - Larra had never seen a wight astride a dead horse or a giant upon a decaying mammoth, and nor had any of the Free Folk, who would know best. No archers, no cavalry, no siege weapons: The Night King did not need them. His siege weapons were his infantrymen.

And for every one of the living who died, they were at risk of allowing another soldier to join the Night King’s army. Those who died within the walls of Winterfell were a risk to those who could keep fighting.

There was only one way to stop the Night King’s influence take hold. Larra knew it: She had lived within its protection for ages. She had been taught the spells…

She slipped down the worn stone steps, the topmost ones still slick from the ice-sleet that had seeped under the door, and she stepped carefully down into the dark. Embers seemed to flicker into life out of the chill darkness, and as she walked along the passage full of gaping vaults unsealed - ready for the future generations of Kings in the North - the embers grew to a warm, inviting glow. Hundreds of candles flickered in the dank vaults, scattered here and there among statues.

Something pierced her heart as Larra stopped at the first statue.

The long, narrow face, the stubborn chin, even Rickon’s wild curls had been immortalised…his face clean-shaven, if he had ever grown in his first whiskers, his expression stern but far gentler than Larra ever remembered her little brother being. His face had been carved, not from memory, but from observing his dead body. His bones were interred, and a likeness of Shaggydog was curled at Rickon’s feet; an iron sword rested on upturned palms, the same as every other statue. There was a reason every statue was given an iron sword - to keep the vengeful spirits at bay…

Every King in the North had pledged an oath - and given it was the Starks, allegedly, who had founded the Night’s Watch, it was perhaps less remarkable that the vows of the Kings of Winter were very similar to the vows of the Night’s Watch - the greatest difference being the vow of celibacy, and holding no lands or titles.

 _Winter is coming, and so begins my reign. I shall defend my realm and all those who live within it. I shall fight for their freedom, never for mine own glory. I shall live and die for the good of the North. At Winterfell the fire burns against the cold, and the light brings the dawn. It is my blood that wakes the sleepers. Mine shall be the sword in the darkness. I am the shield that guards this Realm of Men. I pledge my loyalty to the North. In my life and death I pledge to fight for Winterfell and the North, for winter is coming. Winter is coming_.

They were the words, handed down through the generations - from the very first Brandon, who had built these crypts and the First Keep, and had raised the Wall and manned it with the Night’s Watch. Curious words…full of double-entendre, though no-one knew it.

 _At Winterfell the fire burns against the cold, and the light brings the dawn. It is my blood that wakes the sleepers…_ _In my life and death I pledge to fight for Winterfell and the North, for winter is coming…_

Vows so that the Kings in the North would never forget their duty. And yet, they had forgotten their true meaning - the _power_ of those vows, those words, the magic in their veins. The magic of the First Men, the oaths they had taken…

 _It is my blood that wakes the sleepers…_ A shiver crept down her spine. Larra paused before the statue next to Rickon’s.

It looked like him. Whoever had carved Father’s likeness had known his face. Grave and gentle but unyielding. His bones were there, Larra knew, sealed away. He rested beside his family, beside Lyanna - beyond her, Lord Rickard her father and her brother Brandon held iron swords, direwolves curled at their feet. Rickard and Brandon’s tombs were empty.

Larra glanced back. Rickon, Father, Lyanna, Rickard, Brandon…

Robb was missing. The first King in the North in three centuries. Robb had neither tomb nor statue, and nor did his foreign Queen. A devastating oversight.

Someone had come down to light the candles, and only the Starks ever came down here. They were the only ones who did not dread the crypts, the shadows of the dead Kings of Winter. Some of them had done terrible things, and Larra had grown up learning every one of them, every story. She knew the stories as well as she knew those of the Targaryen dynasty. They may not all have been _good_ men, the Starks of old, but they had been great kings and leaders of men. They were a family of hard people, raised to rule even harder lands in the harshest of times.

Finally, she stood before Lyanna. Every Stark had a place in the crypts; but only the Kings in the North and the Lords of Winterfell had statues, iron swords in their hands and direwolves at their feet. The statues of Brandon and Lyanna were an exception. Brandon, killed gruesomely, and Lyanna…

She carried no blade, but one of her hands was elegantly upturned. Her serene face…looked punishingly like Lyanna’s - gentler, but with the same solemn oval face… Candles flickered all around her, and if Larra squinted, she could almost convince herself that the carved stone eyes were alive… She stared at the statue. Her mother. Her bones had turned to dust long ago, sealed in their crypt. She had been here, all this time.

How many times had Larra come down here, to vent her frustrations - scorning Lyanna for her _stupidity_ in…well, in running off with Rhaegar Targaryen. As a child, Larra had thought, if Lyanna had never done that, then Rickard and Brandon might still be alive, and so would Lyanna, and Father wouldn’t be so unhappy at the sight of Larra’s smiles; he would never have had to marry Lady Catelyn, and he and Larra and Jon could have been happy in a holdfast, with Uncle Benjen. The Seven Kingdoms would not have been plunged into the most destructive war since the Dance of Dragons.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and placed the winter rose in Lyanna’s accepting palm. She sighed, and gazed up at the statue. It wasn’t her _mother_ , but it was the closest Larra had to her. “I’m sorry you’re dead. I’m sorry it all went wrong.”

“ _Lyanna would be so proud of the woman you’ve become - of the man Jon has become_ ,” Uncle Benjen murmured, the wind stealing the sound of his voice.

“ _Was it really worth it_?” she had asked. “ _All the_ horror _, the death_ …”

“ _Were_ you _worth it?_ Always _. Absolutely_.”

She stepped away from the statue, leaving the flower in Lyanna’s hand, and her eyes glanced from Brandon to Rickard...she took a fortifying gulp from her skin of stout, stoppered it, tied the laces to her belt, and set her shoulders, determined.

The candlelight was soon consumed by the gloom. She went deeper into the crypts, walking past each and every sealed tomb. She descended lower, and for a moment, absolute terror gripped her.

Old Nan’s voice echoed off the dank vaulted ceilings of the crypts sealing in ancient kings, telling them the story of the Seventy-Nine Sentinels.

“ _T’was the Nightfort they were bound to, sworn brothers all in black, seventy-nine of them… In the dark of night, they fled the Nightfort, stealing down from the Wall as outlaws, dangerous men with naught to lose…naught but their lives, which were given over to the Night’s Watch before Old Gods and new… One being the youngest son of Lord Ryswell, they thought to secret themselves away in safety to his lands… But Lord Ryswell was a man of honour, and dreaded the wrath of the Kings of Winter should they discover he harboured deserters and oathbreakers… Lord Ryswell had the outlaws rounded up and bound in chains - yes…his son, too, for bringing dishonour upon the Night’s Watch and the name of Ryswell too… They were dragged back to the Wall, and the crows enacted their punishment… Holes were cut into the Wall, seventy-nine in all, one for each of the deserters, who were sealed up inside with horn and spear…in life they had abandoned their posts and brought dishonour upon themselves; in death they endure, sentinels of the coming storm…_ ”

She had always both anticipated and dreaded every retelling of that story. Every time Old Nan told it, the details were slightly different - more gruesome, depending on how much she wanted to frighten the little boys into obedience.

But it made her shudder, to be here, now…where the dead Kings of Winter were interred, bound by their oaths for eternity, their swords of iron all that bound them to the crypts…

She put the Seventy-Nine Sentinels to the back of her mind, focusing not on the ancient kings before her but Lyanna behind her…and Ned, whose love had protected her all her life.

On and on, sprawling far further than the entirety of Winterfell, Larra plunged deeper into the darkness of the ancient crypts, pausing at every sealed tomb…thoughts of the Seventy-Nine Sentinels lingered, though, and she sometimes thought she heard murmurs of the long-dead, their sighs and groans after so long in idleness, a slow and patient anger, a wariness and anticipation emanating from the chill stone…as if the stone itself - or the spirits of those who lay beyond - was alive, and aware…

The only things that startled her in the dark were the cobwebs, and the rustling of rats, but even they grew fewer as she went deeper.

Down, down into the dark, no torchlight to guide her, her sword sheathed at her side, Larra journeyed through the crypts. If she was thirsty, she sipped the rich, savoury stout. If she was hungry - and she thought to herself how _soft_ she was becoming, here at Winterfell, that she gave in to hunger so easily now - she nibbled on an oatcake or a chunk of mature cheese.

And eventually…eventually…she tasted it in the air. Warm water on stone. She tasted it before she heard it, the soft bubble and gurgling of running water. A tiny stream, little more than a trickle, passing from a tiny crevice, into a gentle depression in the earth…and the ground beneath her was earthen, now, no longer foundations of stone.

Her eyes were accustomed to the dark, and she could see…

She squatted down, to kneel and observe the delicate ribbon of clear water trickling from the natural stone - the eldest of the crypts were crude, reminding her too vividly of the Children’s caves beneath the weirwood, the floor beneath her feet of packed ancient earth, the walls carved from ancient ironstone.

Down into the depression she slipped, and then she saw it. In the stillness, the sound of the water brought life to the henge.

It was not as big as the ones she had seen in Bran’s visions, or her own childhood dreams. The sacred henges of the Children, curious spirals of stone made to honour the weirwood groves, which, left to themselves, grew the very same way - the boughs of the weirwood into which the Children fled from the predators, the roots beneath which they created their cave-communities, their homes, secret and safe, feeding the trees with their dead, as the Starks fed their own dead to the crypts, to the weirwood heart-tree that grew above them. To the Children, the great weirwoods were as eternal as stone.

The first White Walker, the dreadful Night King, had been created at a stone henge overlooked by a mountain shaped like an arrowhead, a shard of obsidian plunged into his heart. A weapon for the Children, to defeat the First Men who were their enemies, massacring them…their creation had turned on them, destroying not just Men but…everything…

A henge beneath Winterfell, made by the First Men, the allies of the Children in the War for the Dawn. The stones were smaller, shorter than she was but heavy, and arranged in the strange spiral, sprawling outward.

The henges were places steeped in _magic_.

The henge below; the heart-tree above.

The Kings of Winter, waiting between.

_It is my blood that wakes the sleepers._

* * *

They gasped and writhed against each other, her golden hair spilling over the crumpled linens as he hooked her knee over his elbow, adjusting his hips to thrust deeper, making her cry out, and he groaned, giving a few last brutal thrusts that made her moan shakily, and finally he pulled out of her, rolling to his side, grinning and panting as she preened, smiling and relaxed.

He smoothed a hand over her breasts, which were high, plump and very sensitive, and he tenderly cupped her belly, sweetly rounded… Myrcella had felt the first true flutterings of movement weeks ago; now Trystane felt them.

“I can feel it...like the kiss of butterfly wings against my skin,” he murmured in wonder. He shot her a grin.

“I’ve felt it for weeks, I am glad that you now can…our child straining to meet you…” Myrcella smiled warmly, draped with a kind of rumpled, sensual elegance against the embroidered pillows. She reached a hand down to caress her belly.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite so beautiful as you are now.”

“I’m getting plump,” Myrcella blushed.

“Plump with our child growing in your belly…” Trystane grinned, and his eyes dipped. “And these magnificent breasts…” They were much bigger now, Myrcella thought; Trystane was becoming obsessed with them, though they ached, and had been sensitive to the touch, even to the feel of Qartheen silk against them… There were things no-one had warned her about carrying a child. The vomiting. The bad dreams and sleeplessness, a strange aversion to some of her favourite foods, nausea every hour of the day, feeling tired all the time, and the bloating…the bloating was possibly the worst. She felt uncomfortable in her own skin.

No-one had prepared her for it, not even her mother. But then, her mother had not prepared her for much. Not for life in the Dornish court, certainly; it had been an education of its own, and Myrcella had learned a great deal. About her own body; about _men_. Princess Arianne had been her confidante and her tutor, guiding her in all things…things that had made her blush…and things that had excited her curiosity. Things the Dornish revelled in…finally, she understood why…

“I am glad your father has finally agreed that we shall marry… I was terrified when I first came to Dorne…now the idea of returning to King’s Landing… I could not bear it,” Myrcella said. They both knew Prince Doran had finally only capitulated because of the child growing in her womb. It had been Princess Arianne to suggest Myrcella hurry things along, if she was so terrified that she would be flung back to King’s Landing… “To leave here…to leave _you_ … But I am glad he has agreed. I would not have wanted word to reach my mother that I had been…anything but virtuous.”

“We shall keep it a secret from her, then, that it was _I_ who was in constant danger of being corrupted,” Trystane teased, and Myrcella blushed, smiling fondly at him. “You are tenacious.”

“You like strong women in Dorne.”

“Yes, we do.”

“I was worried your father would…would perhaps cast me aside, or…” She sighed, framing her belly with her hands. Her golden rings glittered in teh fierce sunlight. Winter may have come, but here in Dorne it would mean something very different to Winterfell. She still remembered Winterfell; Prince Doran had told her that Lady Sansa had returned to the North, and reclaimed her home. Myrcella was glad. But Myrcella no longer wanted any home but this one, no family but the Martells who had welcomed and embraced her. “I hear things, what’s happening in the rest of the kingdom. I know diplomatic relationships between Dorne and the Iron Throne are strained…I do not want your father to think less of me for seducing you.”

“Why would he?” Trystane asked, his eyes wide. Prince Doran could have no issue with Myrcella rumpling the sheets with Trystane - not with the way his own daughter carried on. The rumours were she lay with her cousins the Sandsnakes - Myrcella didn’t believe it one bit; but she knew those women adored each other with a ferocity that was often quite alarming.

“Perhaps he thinks…with your cousins on Dragonstone at the Dragon Queen’s court…” Myrcella winced, as her baby kicked. “I’m a complication.”

“Did you think he would allow his first grandchild to be born a bastard?” Trystane asked, trailing his fingers over her rounded belly. He leaned in to kiss it, sighing.

“Trystane…does it bother you?” Myrcella asked. She had never asked before. Better to know now, though, today, before… “The rumours…that I am not Robert Baratheon’s trueborn daughter.”

“Myrcella…” Trystane frowned, but did not immediately deny that he had heard the same rumours - that he and his family likely believed them. As Myrcella did.

“None of us ever looked a _hint_ like him,” Myrcella said, almost desperately, her beautiful face anguished at the realisation, the unsettling truth. “My mother’s twin-brother…they were always together. Even in my _dreams_ they are together, smiling and intimate… What if it is true? Not a princess…a bastard.”

Trystane knelt before her, cupping his face in his hands, his dark features solemn. “Whatever you were born, you shall be Myrcella _Martell_. I give you my name; it shall always be yours, from this day on. And you will be a Princess of Dorne.” He leaned in, and gave her a deep, savouring kiss that lit a fire in her again. He cupped her belly, gazing with fondness and pride at it. “This child…will be a prince or princess of Dorne, and no-one will ever dare question it.” He smiled, kissed her fiercely, and started to climb off the bed. “Now…we should get ready. I shall see you in a few hours, and _finally_ make you my wife.”

“Not yet,” Myrcella said softly, tugging gently on his hand; Trystane didn’t resist. He grinned, and dived for her, already hard, and they groaned in exquisite agony as her legs parted eagerly, and he shoved inside her. Sometimes it was slow and savouring, spending all night just touching and kissing, tormenting each other by denying themselves…sometimes, though, it was hard and fast and desperate. It was like that now, feverish for each other.

“The more I give you, the hungrier you seem to get,” Trystane groaned, and Myrcella grinned, gasping, as he arched his back and spent inside her.

If Myrcella was truly a bastard, she thought, _this_ was why: Because the feeling of someone she loved filling and enflaming her was worth everything in the world.

Hours later, the entire court of Dorne was gathered in the Water Gardens, the scent of citrus heavy in the air, the setting sun gilding everything a deep, rich gold, the perfumed air heavy with moisture and the strains of exotic, hypnotic Dornish music, the sound of laughter and murmured conversations, gasps and stifled grunts from the dainty follies and shivering bushes, and servants everywhere poured vibrant sparkling drinks, offering stuffed olives and figs and pastries drenched in pomegranate syrup. Prince Doran was dressed handsomely, his aching feet concealed by shimmering silk, as he was wheeled through the gardens, greeting his court, to take his place in the most honoured position, observing the proceedings as the septon prepared.

The laughter and conversation bubbled brightly, delighted, and cheers issued from a few of the nobles present, alerting everyone to the presence of Princess Arianne for the first time in months. No-one but Doran and his man Areo Hotah knew that a coup had been stopped before it could put Princess Myrcella at risk: Doran had had his own daughter and heir imprisoned for her recklessness. Now, she knew all.

Now, things had altered. News had reached them of a Lion Culling.

Demands had been sent from Dragonstone - ordering the Prince of Dorne and all his lords to bend the knee to Daenerys Targaryen, or die.

And specifically to Prince Doran, to yield the Princess Myrcella.

The years she had been a guest at his court, Doran knew the girl had come to view the Water Gardens as her home. He had come to have a deep and abiding affection for her - and had understood her value far sooner than his eldest son, who was enamoured of her beauty. She was naturally a joyous, gentle girl, underestimated because of her shining golden beauty. But she was _cunning_ , Doran knew it: He had spent too many hours playing cyvasse with her - she had been a quick study. It was…delightful, to spend time with her. She radiated light and an innate joy wherever she went - her mother’s opposite in every way. And Doran had invested much, to make up for her lack of education: She had enjoyed her lessons, and continued to show incredible promise. She had innocence, a genuine sweetness, and shining beauty that stood out among the salty Dornishmen. Arianne had been teaching her guile; but Myrcella could teach Arianne much about patience and objectivity.

Yes, Princess Myrcella would be an asset to the royal court of Dorne. She was not just an exquisite beauty: She was cleverer than Trystane, gentler and more patient than Arianne, with her own unique charm and tact. She complemented his children beautifully, and Doran foresaw the future: a wise, calm, stunning woman who charmed with ease and guided her husband and sister-by-law with patience and insight.

He regretted that she had been so frightened that he would brush her aside, send her back to her disgraced mother, do _worse_. But he could not help but smile in anticipation - she was with child. His first grandchild. The future of House Martell, a future for Dorne.

Doran flicked his gaze to Trystane, already ready, waiting, dressed in Martell colours, a silk cloak falling from his shoulders; and he greeted his older sister with a bright grin, clasping her in his arms to kiss her.

“Sister!”

“Did you think I would miss such an occasion?” Arianne purred, smirking. Trystane glanced knowingly at his father, who winked subtly. Arianne sighed, smiled, and gathered up her glittering skirts to lean down and kiss her father’s cheek. “Father.”

“Dear child,” he sighed, smiling. He reached out a hand to cup his daughter’s cheek. Beautiful. Wilful, like her mother…passionate, like Oberyn, with a hint of Doran’s own shrewdness that time and experience would nurture.

The music swelled, and a sigh whispered through the crowds. Myrcella had appeared.

In the dying sunlight, Princess Myrcella glowed as radiant as the sun. Her golden hair had been curled and brushed down her back, and wreathing her head was an intricate coronet of gold orange-blossoms and pearls, Doran’s personal bride-gift to her. Her gown was of fine pale-gold lace, falling from intricate strings of golden pearls gleaming over her shoulders, the lace shimmering with thousands of tiny gold beads, outlining golden lions and tangled antlers and sunspears over the lace, which showed off her breasts, growing more succulent and plump as the child in her belly grew bigger, and the golden embroidery trickled over her hips, the swell of her belly noticeable under the pale-gold lace, the future of House Martell for all to see.

There was no hiding it, though clever sewing might have, a different style of gown, if they had chosen to conceal what all knew. In the last month, she had started to show. Myrcella was proud of that child, excited for its birth, already in love with its every flutter and kick. The other day, she had reported that the baby kept _hiccupping_.

Every tiny detail about the child reminded Doran of his own anticipation of Arianne’s birth, when he was young and in love... Only an hour ago, Trystane had told Doran that he had felt the baby moving in her belly for the first time. Doran hoped it would not be the only child to bring joy to their family. He wanted to hear innocent laughter echoing through the Water Gardens again before he died.

Trystane draped his cloak over Myrcella’s shoulders, giving her their protection. She was officially _their_ princess now. And no-one would take her from them. Not Daenerys Targaryen…not even Myrcella’s mother.

She carried the future of House Martell…she _was_ the future of House Martell, along with Princess Arianne, and her new husband Prince Trystane, who spirited his new wife away to their bedchamber before they could even start the wedding feast. They reappeared, flushed and wearing a change of dress less formal, more comfortable for a feast - for dancing and celebration. Myrcella was radiant, her golden curls shining in the candlelight as she beamed, dancing giddily and laughing, her new husband stealing kisses, noblewomen congratulating her on her child, the future prince or princess, offering advice, asking about names…

No-one told Myrcella about the Lion Culling that night.

He let the newlyweds bask in their love, in their _lust_ …

They had time for grief and dread later.

They had time to prepare Princess Myrcella Martell as envoy at a summit between warring queens, both of whom wanted to snatch her from the other’s grip.

Doran wondered, sipping his wine, his lips curling with anticipation, how Cersei would react, to see her daughter so recently wed and noticeably with child already.

* * *

She stood buffeted by the wind, by the snap and thunder-clap of her children’s wings as they soared and danced in the air about her. From the top of the cliff, she looked over Dragonstone, the island and its ancient fortress forged with fire and forgotten magic, and the new settlement that had sprung up at the base of the Dragonmont, protected by the castle and inhabited by Dothraki and Unsullied and Meereenese freed-slaves. The Dragonstone natives, those whose families had lived on the island for centuries, some long before the Conquest, kept to themselves, at the quays and in little hamlets. Watchful and wary, waiting for the moment Daenerys would leave their island, their home, and take the Seven Kingdoms - and leave them in the peace they had become accustomed to.

This was _her_ ancestral home, though it did not feel like it.

Her home was Khal Drogo, making love under the moonlight in the great grass seas, their son growing healthy and strong… In her dreams, her home was the sons and daughters she bore Khal Drogo, plenty of both, all copper-skinned, violet-eyed, strapping and strong like Drogo with her gentle, fierce heart… That home had been taken from her, as had every other.

She had not known home since the red door in balmy Braavos, with the lemon-tree outside her window.

Ser Jorah had once told her that Braavos was a dank stone city concealed by mists in the marshes. Lord Tyrion agreed: Whatever trees there were in the stone city were not citrus.

Citrus grew in the _south_ , in Dorne. They were famous for their orange-blossoms and lemon-cakes.

Daenerys frowned, swatting away the thoughts.

She would _not_ have her advisors convincing her that her _own_ memories were _false_.

Not only were they questioning her _decisions_ …

She winced. The little girl had left claw-marks on Daenerys’ skin, something no armed man had yet managed, in all their many attempts.

“ _Which gave Drogon the most trouble? The young women heavy with child, the brittle old men or the infants?! This was not an act of war. This was an act of murder. You BURNED little children._ ”

No matter what she had been engaged in the last few days, always, her thoughts seemed shattered by the King’s words. They shot through her when she dozed toward sleep, spoiled the food in her mouth as she dined with her sullen court, and filled her with a hotness not unlike Drogon’s fire burning beneath her skin, blistering and painful.

She felt as if she was back in the Great Pyramid again, forced to deal with the freed-slave who had killed the Son of the Harpy imprisoned in her custody for questioning. She felt the subtle but irrefutable sting of shame and uncertainty as Hizdahr zo Loraq told her that his father, a man of learning who had honoured Meereen’s past by preserving its great monuments for posterity, for the future, had been crucified on her orders.

For every action, she was coming to realise, there were going to be untold, unforeseen reactions.

She had ended House Lannister, as they had ended House Tyrell. She had spared seven, as seven were spared. She had done no more than House Lannister when they had sacked Highgarden, and yet…and yet _she_ they turned their noses up at in disdain, disrespectful. It was _she_ they refused to look in the eye. _She_ they scorned.

Daenerys closed her eyes.

 _Had you not promised yourself that you were_ above _them all? That you were_ better _than those you intend to rid the world of? That you had not come to Westeros to murder people and orphan their children_? a little voice inside her head said. It sounded suspiciously like Ser Barristan, the calm old man with soft white hair and stories about her valiant, gentle brother, who had never liked killing, as Viserys had claimed, but had adored _singing_. Had been a man himself as their Father descended into cruelty, turned mad by the tortures he endured at Duskendale, where Ser Barristan had been the only man to dare scale the walls and rescue his king.

What had the broad, shrewd-eyed Lannister woman, Lady Genna, said? “ _Tywin was right: It would have been better had King Aerys died at Duskendale. Rhaegar would still sit upon the Iron Throne…and you, girl…you would never have been born to replace your father in cruelty - and firelust_ …”

She had warned Daenerys that she would become Queen of naught but ashes…

What had Jon Snow called her, the night she held court, after the wild brat had assaulted her? The Unsullied should have been able to stop her; why had they been so slow? How had the King come between them?

Why had her own men turned on her Unsullied? The Greyjoys and the Sandsnakes had each held weapons to her Unsullied, her _kos_.

Over a _child_.

Daenerys winced.

Had she not often wished, as a frightened child no older than the violent little lioness, that someone…someone _like the King_ would come and rescue her? Fierce and gentle and brave. To stand between her…and Viserys, all Daenerys knew in the world, and her first, prolonged exposure to cruelty. How often had she ached, in those first few torturous days and weeks of her marriage to Khal Drogo, before she had learned the ways of love to gentle and coax him…as he had taken her brutally on her belly, on her knees…before she had taught them both that he could be tender… How often had she bitten down on her whimpers of pain and imagined herself somewhere else, perhaps with a man who was gentle and considerate, with hands calloused from fighting but whose eyes lit up with warmth as he shushed and cuddled a frightened child.

Khal Drogo had _become_ that man, whose calloused hands turned gentle when he held her, who had killed Viserys to protect her, and their unborn son.

In that moment, slumped on her throne, smarting and bleeding, Daenerys had realised one horrifying thing.

To that small child, cuddled in the King’s arms… _she_ was more vicious than Viserys had ever been.

 _He_ had sold their mother’s crown to feed and shelter them.

 _She_ …had taken the jewels of that child’s mother and…as Jon Snow said…had paraded them about, unthinking of the effects… The _reactions_.

She had made a mistake.

Possibly more than one. And yet she was uncertain… The Lannisters were not abhorred, had not lost the respect of Westeros when they had taken Highgarden, and yet…and yet Daenerys saw it in their eyes. A shrewd caution, a _disappointment_ …

They expected more from her.

She had let them down.

She had let herself down, she realised.

What had the King said?

“ _You’ve given Cersei all the weapons she needs to defeat you. The Mad King’s Daughter will burn Westeros - down to the last child - to become Queen of the ashes_!”

She had vowed that she was _not_ her father, that she understood that he had been an evil man inflicting untold horrors on innocents, and that that same malice had sparked the destruction of a dynasty, had robbed Daenerys of her family, her home…

The day he had arrived, the King in the North had told her that any oath his ancestors had made had been destroyed in fire and blood when her father murdered his grandfather and uncle, when her brother had stolen off into the night with the only daughter of the North…

The Targaryen dynasty had ended in fire and blood. And she had begun her conquest with the very same.

Daenerys winced, and sighed, shaking her head. Her long hair, intricately arranged by a noticeably quiet Missandei, featured a new braid, but it seemed to sit heavily on her head, the way none of the others did. She tucked a loose curl over her shoulder, catching sight of movement.

She had chosen no _kos_ , but claimed the entire united khalasaar of Dothraki as her bloodriders. And yet, among them, they had their leaders - the strongest, fiercest, most ruthless of them. They had the finest horses, and in the castle, kept the most beautiful wives, some of the young girls freshly mounted for the first time, but others had already given them fierce sons of their own, who trailed behind their fathers, loosely swinging their arakhs and whips, some plucking the strings of their bows. With them walked the young _dosh khaleen_ Zharanni, the beautiful Lhazareen widow with remarkably fine eyes: She was one of Daenerys’ ladies-in-waiting now, the rest of her young life no longer given to isolation in _Vaes Dothrak_. Daenerys was already considering possible marriages for her: She _was_ a beauty, and her lessons with Missandei on the common tongue were coming along very well. Naturally shy from her husband’s abuse, and the sharp tongues of the hags of the _dosh khaleen_ , she was becoming vibrant once more, curious and engaged, and in awe of Daenerys. The Dothraki still respected Zharanni - and the other women - as _dosh khaleen_ , but they did not question that they sat in Daenerys’ court in finery, rather than secluded away in shadows, as they had been in Vaes Dothrak.

What good was their wisdom, if Daenerys had no access to it?

Some of the other _dosh khaleen_ had not made the journey with Daenerys; they had remained in Vaes Dothrak, as the merchants and slaves had. Daenerys needed only the mounted warriors. But of the _dosh khaleen_ , Zharanni now led them; Jassi was still young, and had given her _khal_ five sons before his death - she had taken Daenerys’ _ko_ Zireyo as her husband, when Daenerys had declared that the _dosh khaleen_ could remarry - and in fact, should. She was already pregnant: Zireyo expected a son as fine as any of the five she had born her _khal_.

Zharanni was accompanied by Oqetti, the daughter of Kovo, bloodrider to one of the burned khals - the one who had whipped Daenerys and taunted her on their long trek to Vaes Dothrak, and one of the first to kneel before her as the great temple had burned around her. Daenerys had chosen Oqetti as a handmaiden, and where Zharanni went, Oqetti was likely to be. Oqetti remained in awe of Daenerys; Zharanni smiled beautifully at Daenerys as she approached, with Kovo and Zireyo, Qago and Rozzo, her _ko_. She had no bloodriders, but she had men who kept a firm control over her khalasaar. It was the greatest since the Century of Blood: Her warriors needed a firm hand to guide them.

“ _Khaleesi_ ,” Zharanni began, then flushed and smiled bashfully, switching to the common tongue, “My Queen… Ser Jorah here.”

“Ser Jorah is here?” Daenerys breathed, light filling her, _relief_. Whatever their tumultuous bond was, he had been with her since the very beginning, since her wedding-day, and if he had had his way, every day since. He loved her, she knew: She loved him, in her way, as a niece might love her uncle. He had guided and protected her… And whatever else he had done, he had always done his utmost to make it right with her. Was deeply loyal to her. And he always gave her wise advice.

And there he was. Wrapped in a fur-trimmed cloak billowing in the winds, his weather-beaten face earnest and smiling as he stepped forward, taking a knee respectfully.

“ _Khaleesi_ ,” he rumbled. She would always be his _khaleesi_ , she knew, no matter how many lands she conquered or thrones she claimed. She would always be the shy, dainty girl in the pale pink silk dress, silver-blonde in a sea of copper-skinned Dothraki, delicate and untouchable, and _strong_. He had watched her turn from frightened girl to the Mother of Dragons, to a conqueror, confident and radiant… “Your Grace.”

“You look strong,” Daenerys gasped, unable to contain just how pleased she was, how relieved. She had banished him to cure himself and return to her - as he always had. “You found a cure?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” Ser Jorah promised. “I return to your service, my Queen… If you’ll have me.”

“It would be my honour,” Daenerys beamed. She reached her hands out for him, and the knight stood, his Westerosi armour gleaming, the rearing bear over his heart seeming to roar, and smiled as he took her hands in his. “I admit I am quite in need of your counsel, Ser Jorah.”

* * *

Hissing at the brightness of the light, Larra stumbled out of the stairwell, hand clamped over her eyes, and took up a vigil beside one of the carved direwolves as the sound of carts rattled far too close and the clamour of the courtyard stung her deprived ears. Too bright, too loud. She had grown accustomed to the dark, to the restless silence of the crypt.

“Where _have_ you _been_?”

She jumped, and squinted in the sunlight.

A fire burned, growing larger the closer it got, consuming everything… _Oh_. _Not fire. Sansa._ Larra winced, and opened her eyes, which smarted in the brightness of a pristine white sky. Snow was drifting down in idle flurries.

Sansa advanced hurriedly, her pale, beautiful face pinched anxiously.

“I’ve been…in there,” Larra said, raising her hand to jab her thumb over her shoulder.

“For _three days_?!” Sansa blurted exasperatedly. Larra blinked.

“Three days?”

“Yes! What were you doing?!”

“Didn’t Bran tell you?” Larra asked, tilting her head to one side.

“Bran - he’s gone off - who knows where…or _when_!” Sansa said. “What on _earth_ were you doing down there?”

“Making preparations,” Larra said, almost defensively. It had not felt like three days…

“What kinds of preparations?” Sansa frowned. She glanced at the obsidian-banded door. “Doing something for Bran?”

“Yes,” Larra said quietly. Sansa actually looked quite upset. _You’ve been gone three days, with no word_ , Larra thought guiltily.

“Couldn’t he do it himself?” Sansa asked. Larra raised her eyebrows, and Sansa realised what she had said. She blushed. “ _Oh_.”

“He used to forget, too,” Larra said sadly.

“What was it you were doing down there?” Sansa asked quietly, eyeing the door to the crypt warily.

“Waking the sleepers.”


	28. His Father's House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my face-claim for Gendry will always be Henry Cavill. Take a peek at 'Night Hunter' which shows him with full beard and wild curls, wearing snuggly jumpers; and his accent and clothing will be inspired by Geralt of Rivia!

**Valyrian Steel**

_28_

_His Father’s House_

* * *

She stared into the fire, the soft click-clack of her needles soothing as Old Nan’s used to be, as she reacquainted her fingers again with the feel of polished oak needles and soft yarn coiled around her finger to guide it. Like Old Nan, she could knit without even looking at the yarn: Her hands remembered every stitch, every pattern. It was embedded in her muscle-memory, as much as her knife-training and fletching skills.

“What are you thinking about?” asked a soft voice. More and more often over the last few days and weeks since Larra had told him off, Bran had been making an effort. To _engage_.

Perhaps it was the easiest and best way he had of remaining in the present, focused on _them_ , rather than on the thousands of years’ worth of memories fighting for dominance inside his own head. Asking them questions perhaps allowed him to sift through the memories, and realise where and when he wask.

Larra sighed, glancing over at Bran. “Arya.”

“You still worry about her,” Bran said softly.

“I worry about what she _did_ ,” Larra admitted quietly.

Bran sighed, and reached over, his pale hand glowing in the firelight. Larra eyed it, knowing what that simple gesture meant. She lowered her knitting, transferred the needles to one hand so she would not drop stitches…and she took his hand, uncertain whether she was prepared to see what he had to show her.

Blistering sunlight blinded her, and she was deafened from the throng pressing around them. Bran stood at ease, but there was no relaxed, dry humour in his face, or wonder; only grief.

They stood among the mob outside the Sept of Baelor.

“ _No_!” Larra blurted, whirling away, her eyes clamped shut: She _would not look_.

 _You owe it to him to look him in the eye…if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps he does not deserve to die_ …

Bran appeared before her, smiling sadly, his dark eyes pinched in pain. He pointed in the direction of the one man in the crowd _not_ staring at the steps, jeering and screaming, and Ned Stark lowered his head to the executioner’s block. The grubby man with the lined, weather-beaten face was dressed all in black, his clothing patched, threadbare in places and dusty: He had a small child snared in his arms, their head pressed tight against his chest, as they wriggled and thrashed to get free.

Not a child.

 _Arya_.

She was in boys’ clothes, and the Braavosi sword Jon had had Mikken forge for her as a parting-gift was tucked into its sheath at her belt.

As Larra stared at her little sister, grubby and hungry-looking, she heard the tell-tale swish…and her heart stuttered as a flock of pigeons took to the air; Arya’s eyes were focused on them. Her breath caught in her lungs, her body thrumming with heat and despair, and she pushed back tears, focused on Arya. On the man who had her face tucked against him, to make sure _she didn’t see_ …

Larra sniffed, and focused on the grubby man in black. “I know his face,” she said hollowly, hating Bran in that moment for bringing her here. _Father_ … “Yoren. That was his name. The wandering crow… He shared the road with Lord Tyrion on his return from the Wall…”

She remembered him in the Great Hall at Winterfell, grateful for room at their hearth and table, given a good bed for the night. She remembered Robb trading barbs with Lord Tyrion, and herself, sheathing the blade Robb had laid bare before him as threat to Lord Tyrion…who had returned from the Wall with a wonderful design for a saddle that had allowed Bran to _ride_ … Lion and crow had left Winterfell together, sharing the road.

“Look at me! Look at me!” Yoren forced Arya to look up; her eyes were damp, but she looked more shocked than anything, numb. His voice aggressive, forceful, Yoren shook Arya out of her daze. Sharp-minded and grim, Yoren eyed the crowd warily, his face pinched, and in that moment Larra knew, he understood exactly who Arya was, and exactly the danger she was in. Her respect for the wandering crow, Jon’s black brother, grew a hundredfold. “You remember me now, boy? Hey, remember me?” Arya blinked, and seemed to come out of her daze; she focused on his face, adn appeared to nod. “That’s a good boy. You’ll be coming with me, boy - and you’ll be keeping your mouth _shut_.”

He lifted her roughly, shouldering his way through the crowd, her head tucked against his shoulder - she still could not see the steps of the Sept, and Larra did not look back. She followed Yoren, shoving his way through the crowd, the sound of King Joffrey’s voice smug and arrogant as he addressed the crowd - who roared their approval.

In a dusty side-alley, Yoren stopped, shoving Arya against the wall. “Keep your mouth shut, boy.”

“I’m not a boy!” Arya cried in protest, blinking up at Yoren with her huge expressive eyes, and jumped as he unsheathed a dagger at his belt. He was strapped with weapons, not just a brother of the Night’s Watch but a wandering crow - and their job was more dangerous than the Rangers. Rangers only had to deal with wildlings and White Walkers: Wandering crows had to deal with every kind of scum, filth and other nobility there was in the Seven Kingdoms.

“You’re not a _smart_ boy, is that what you’re trying to say?! D’you want to live, boy?” Yoren growled dangerously, and he starts to slash Arya’s long brown hair off. “North, boy, we’re going North…” He finished slashing Arya’s long hair; it fell to the floor, dirty and tangled. How often had Arya threatened to cut her own hair, furious about having the knots combed out? Gripping her tightly by the upper-arm, Yoren led her away from the Sept, away from the crowds, to a dusty marketplace choked with the stench of the city’s poorest and shimmering with heat. He released her arm, shoving her toward a group of young boys. “You, stay here with this lot, boy, and - _stay_ \- or I’ll lock you in the back of the wagon with these three.”

Arya stared at a prison wagon, inside which three men were locked. One had a cowl over his head, and sat complacently; the other two snarled and grumbled and howled. Arya stared so long, she didn’t see the large boy until she collided with him. He pushed her down into the dirt.

“Watch yourself, _midget_!”

“He’s got a sword, this one.” A ratty-looking boy appeared beside the large one, watery eyes peering down at Arya.

“What’s a gutter-rat like you doing with a sword?”

“Maybe he’s a little squire,” rat-boy jeered.

“He ain’t no squire, look at him. Looks like a girl!” exclaimed the fat boy. “I’ll bet he stole that sword.”

“Let’s have a look.”

“I could use me a sword like that,” said the fat boy thoughtfully.

“Well, take it off him.”

“Give it here, _midget_.”

“Look at him,” rat-boy snickered. “You better give Hot Pie the sword. I’ve seen him kick a boy to _death_.”

“I knocked him down, and I kicked him in the balls, and I kept kickin’ him, until he was dead. I kicked him all to pieces,” the fat boy, Hot Pie, boasted. “You better give me that _sword_!”

“You want it?” Arya snatched his hand, Needle already pointed at his belly. She used his weight to lever herself off the floor, the boy barely breathing as Needle threatened to pierce him full of holes “I’ll give it to you. I already killed one fat boy. I bet you’ve never killed anyone. I bet you’re a _liar_. But _I’m_ not. I’m good at killing fat boys. I _like_ killing fat boys.” She advanced, tiny and terrifying, and Hot Pie stumbled back, into a taller boy stood behind him with his well-muscled arms folded across his chest, vivid blue eyes narrowed as he scowled.

“Oh!” Hot Pie gasped, stumbling away from the taller boy. He was older than the rest, sixteen or seventeen, tall and well-built - well-fed - and likely to get taller and bigger. His black hair was shorn for ease, his jaw was already strong, and his chin was dimpled. He had high cheekbones and an imperfect nose Larra thought perfectly fit his rugged, deeply masculine face.

He was already handsome, in a brutal sort of way - because of the harsh haircut. Those eyes - dark and mesmerising as the finest sapphires, finely lashed - were startling, set into his grubby and tanned face.

“You like picking on the little ones, do you?” he asked, and his voice…was attractive, not too deep yet but laced with menace, and he seemed to grow bigger as he crowded Hot Pie, dominant and threatening. He was all shoulders and arms and flashing yes. And he knew it: The other boys cowered. “You know, I’ve been hammering an anvil these past ten years. When I hit that steel, it _sings_. Are you gonna sing when I hit you?” Hot Pie fled, glancing over his shoulder warily, the rat-boy looking frightened. The sapphire-eyed boy sighed softly, his posture relaxing. _All for show_ , Larra thought, finding herself smiling. _He knows bullies are frightened of him_. She eyed his arms, corded with muscles already, bigger than they should be for a boy his age. What had he said - he’d been hammering an anvil the last ten year? A blacksmith’s apprentice. He turned to Arya, eyeing her shrewdly. He frowned at Needle, still gleaming in her hand. He wasn’t afraid of the blade, the way Hot Pie had been, and he handled the steel with confidence as he reached for it. Not to steal it from her, and Arya seemed to understand that, for she did nothing to stop him as he took the Braavosi sword from her, examining it carefully. He noticed the maker’s mark claiming it as Mikken’s work. “This is castle-forged steel!” he said, surprised. He gave Arya an assessing look. “Where’d you steal it?”

“It was a gift.” _From Jon_ , Larra thought, frowning. ‘ _I already killed one fat boy_ …’

“Did she kill a boy?” Larra asked Bran, remembering what Arya had told Hot Pie. She was no liar, after all.

“Oh, yes,” Bran said softly.

“Don’t matter now,” the tall, blue-eyed boy told Arya. “Where we’re going, they don’t care what you’ve done. We’ve got rapers, pickpockets, highwaymen. Murderers.”

“Which are you?” Arya asked, and for a second, sadness and disappointment flickered across his face, regretful.

“Armourer’s apprentice,” he said. He shrugged off his sadness, but Larra had seen it - and Arya did, too. “But my master got sick of me, so, here I am.”

“Come on, you sorry sons of whores!” Yoren bellowed across the marketplace, climbing onto a wagon. “It’s a thousand leagues from here to the Wall. And _winter is coming_!”

Arya sheathed _Needle_ at her side, and marched off behind the boy with the blue eyes. He carried a pack and a helmet fashioned after the head of a bull, horns and all, and Larra noted it; it was fine work. A testament to his skill and his patience. Arya looked back, just once, past the wagon cage, to the dusty market square, but the steps of the Sept, still splattered with the blood of Ned Stark, were out of sight, and Sansa had been carried into the Red Keep by the Hound, the pretty she-wolf locked away in a cage.

They watched Arya. Her friendship with the brave, gentle and strong young man Gendry, with his blazing blue eyes and infallible sense of decency, his corded muscles, handsome laugh, cheerful charisma and his grit, his bravery and loyalty.

They watched the crows’ journey North, and the death of Yoren, protecting not only Arya but also Gendry, hunted by the Gold Cloaks for a secret even he didn’t seem to know.

They watched Arya sleeping in the rain at the feet of the ruined Harrenhall, as the screams of smallfolk being mutilated punctured the air, all the way to Arya, sleeping in the rain, on the steps of the House of Black and White. Everything in between. The playful protectiveness of Gendry; the extraordinary vulnerability of Tywin Lannister before his disguised cupbearer; the eerily entrancing Jaqen H'ghar. The Brotherhood - Gendry pinning Arya to the ground as she writhed and fought and spat at the Hound to “Burn in hell!” for the murder of the butcher’s boy, judged by the Brotherhood’s Lord of Light in a trial by combat against Lord Beric Dondarrion, resurrected half a dozen times.

“ _I can be your family_ ,” Arya had told Gendry, her heart breaking. The simmering hatred in her gaze as Arya glowered at the Red Woman, Lady Melisandre, who had bought Gendry from the Brotherhood determined to ransom Arya to her Tully relatives.

Sandor Clegane, riding through a burning army camp carrying an unconscious Arya and a Frey banner to conceal their escape as the Northern army was butchered. Teaching her where the heart was. A brawl in a tiny tavern…striking the Hound’s name off her list as he lay broken, goading her to kill him…bartering for passage with the curious coin Jaqen H'ghar had given her, and the ancient Valyrian words, “ _Valar Morghulis_ ,” spoken to a Braavosi ship’s captain.

They watched her lessons. Her blindness.

Larra watched her charismatic, fiercely just sister become consumed with vengeance. She watched the animated, vibrant and passionate Arya become _still_. Quiet, watchful. Wrathful. Burning with a hate that kept her blood warm as she lay in the mud listening to torture, or begged blindly in the damp, cobbled streets of Braavos, or calmly kneaded dough in a darkened kitchen, her mother’s and brother’s killers dismembered in a barrel, ready to be baked into a pie for their father.

And her prayer… “ _Joffrey, Cersei. Ser Ilyn Payne. The Hound. Meryn Trant. Amory Lorch. The Mountain. The Tickler. Raff the Sweetling. Polliver. Chiswyck. Weese. Dunsen. The Red Woman. Thoros of Myr. Beric Dondarrion. Walder Frey. Valar morghulis_ …” Names she had offered up to the god of Death before she even understood what _Valar morghulis_ truly meant. Names that, one by one, Arya was striking off her list, the names committed to memory, committed to the god of Death. The prayer was becoming shorter.

As Arya donned a new face, fastening a crimson cloak to elaborate, gilded-steel armour, her lips moved silently: _Cersei, the Mountain. The Red Woman. Thoros of Myr. Beric Dondarrion. Valar morghulis_.

Bran sighed, and released Larra from the memory.

The ruddy walls of the Red Keep, glowing in the lingering sunset bathing King’s Landing in blood-red light, faded to ancient grey stone and a log crackling orange-white in the hearth.

Larra sat quietly, her hand still clasped loosely around her knitting. Dazedly, she picked up her needles… _Needle_.

Arya had cried as she hid the little sword Jon had gifted her.

She had been unable to bear giving up that little sword, to shed all that she was, her identity, her past…her family. To abandon the love of her brother, her hope…to see him again. To return _home_ , to her family…

Arya had knocked the poisoned rum from Lady Crane’s hand, knowing that her death was undeserved - that her name had been offered up out of spite and jealousy, not a desire for justice. And when she was hurt, Arya had sought refuge in Lady Crane’s home. Larra had thought there was a slight resemblance between Lady Crane and Lady Catelyn - their colouring, their cheekbones, the sensible maternal warmth radiating from the actress as she tenderly administered to Arya’s wounds, the first motherly touch Arya had known since she left Winterfell…

Arya had killed the Waif not just in self-defence, but as justice for the actress who had healed and sheltered her - and been mutilated for her kindness.

No matter what Arya had done, Larra knew…her sister was not _gone_. She was _lost_. Drowning in grief, pain and a desire for vengeance to drown out the screaming inside her own mind that had not stopped since they took Father’s head.

The butcher’s boy had been Arya’s first taste of true powerlessness, of injustice: Since then, she had witnessed almost every evil of Man’s devising. Arya understood just how ugly the world truly was.

Now Arya had the skills to answer injustice with swift and brutal violence.

Arya’s journey had been more gruesome, more brutal, more unforgiving than Larra could ever have believed if she had not witnessed it. It was no wonder that Arya was… _altered_.

There was no shame in Arya having been so brutally changed by all she had survived, all she had endured.

Weren’t they all?

But when the last name was struck from her list, what then? Larra couldn’t help wonder. When she had avenged their family, and anyone who had ever crossed her, would her wrathful sister ever be able to find peace?

Needle, Lady Crane…Larra had seen Arya’s truest nature shining through in those rare moments - crying in heartbreak for missing Jon; seeking the safety of a mother’s warmth.

Arya’s tears, her rare vulnerability, had reminded Larra how _young_ Arya still was; how young she had been when Father was executed. Arya was now only as old as Larra had been when she had fled Winterfell, and the Ironborn, with Bran and Rickon.

From the moment Ned Stark had been executed, Arya had been fashioned by the men she had met along her journey - every single one of them - but she was still, deep in her heart, that delightful, ferocious little girl who believed in justice, in loyalty and truth.

Larra hoped that, one day, Arya would be able to return home. Not just to Winterfell…to herself. To find peace, and shed the wrath she wore as both blanket and shield.

She raised her eyes to the mantel over the hearth, where Sansa had agreed they should place the small portraits Larra had long ago painted of their family. There she was, Arya, twelve years old, still with the light of innocence in her eyes and her thin lips curved into a breathless smile of anticipation, her long braids unkempt. To look at that painting…it bore no resemblance to the cunning, dangerous young woman Arya had become. Because of all Arya had endured…the torture, the training - Hot Pie and Yoren and Jaqen H'ghar and Tywin Lannister and the Brotherhood and Gendry.

“What happened to the boy?” Larra asked, glancing at Bran. It was easier than asking about Arya. But the boy, who had been charming and clever, even-tempered, shrewd, with an easy laugh and a spine of tempered steel - even as he faced down torture… His face lingered in her mind, those incredible blue eyes, the strong, dimpled chin, stronger arms, even the shadow of a beard he had grown by the time he and Arya were separated. How fiercely he had reminded Larra of Jon, just watching the way he treated Arya - with delighted incredulity mingled with fondness, deep love and fierce protectiveness. “The Red Witch bought him. Did he live?”

Bran smiled softly. “He lived.”

“Where is he now?”

“About to meet an old friend.”

* * *

“You know where you’re headed?”

“I made this journey before, in the dark, drenched in the blood of my father and lover. I know the way,” Lord Tyrion muttered, eyeing the red castle towering over the city. It was a tiny inlet, ideal for smugglers who wished to avoid detection - though most smugglers utilised the blanket of darkness that was night, with only the moonlight to guide them; so said Ser Davos, who was the expert in such things, as evidenced by his knuckle-bones draped around his neck in a leather pouch. Not them: Lord Tyrion had asserted that if he were to appear in the Hour of the Wolf, every Lannister soldier in the Red Keep would be called upon to skewer him, if the Mountain did not crush him like a grape before that. No, it was broad daylight for him, so to allay at least one of Cersei’s fears. Even if Cersei was not the one he was here to see.

He just hoped Jaime had not armoured his detachable hand with a hook to disembowel him on sight.

Tyrion was under no illusions that…he had murdered their father, after Jaime had conspired to free him from his prison, and certain death by royal executioner…

Tyrion had murdered their father, after Jaime had spent a lifetime defending him.

“And where are you going?” Lord Tyrion frowned at the Spider, who had climbed out of the boat with surprising agility, and now stood assessing the cliff-face. He did not wear his fur-trimmed robes made of fine Qartheen samite. No; he dressed humbly, now, as Tyrion knew he was prone to when he did not wish to be noticed. Lord Varys was still a mummer, playing a part.

“I have things to attend to. My little birds find it difficult to fly through the storms,” Lord Varys said softly. “And I do so miss their songs.”

“Well, good luck. Does Cersei _know_ you’ve been to Meereen and back?”

“What my little birds _have_ told me, the Queen’s new Hand believes he guides them,” Lord Varys sniffed. “They give him titbits, little more - of course, your sister has never been anything less than petty and vengeful; she focuses on the little things, far too close to home. She has no care for news from abroad; she cares to know who still laughs at the Queen who walked naked through the streets, sheared and shamed, covered in shit.”

Lord Tyrion’s lips twitched into a leer. “Do you know, the people of King’s Landing suddenly seem far more attractive to me than they were a moment ago.”

“As for the news of my whereabouts, I took great care to conceal my movements - especially in connection with _you_ …” Lord Varys shrugged. “And it takes a little more than candied plums to turn my little birds’ feathers… If you’ll pardon me, my lords.” He bowed to them, moving with surprising speed and ease across the sand, and disappeared, heading for the city.

Ser Davos kicked a long stake into the sand, wedging it deep, securing the boat from drifting away into the tides of the Blackwater, their only escape.

“There’s a path to the left that hugs the cliff,” Ser Davos told Tyrion, gesturing. “City Watch hardly ever patrols it; too many steps.”

“You’re not staying here?” Lord Tyrion blurted, as Ser Davos strode past him, following in Lord Varys’ wake.

“I’ve got my own business in Flea Bottom,” Ser Davos told him.

“What if someone takes the boat?”

“Then we’re fucked!” Ser Davos exclaimed, glancing over his shoulder as he strode off. “Best hurry.”

The city stank. It always had. Like sour wine, rotting fish, baking bread, sweat, horse-piss, nightsoil and smoke. The cantankerous old captain of _Cobblecat_ had claimed that King’s Landing reeked like an unwashed whore. As a boy Ser Davos remembered his eyes watering at the stench in high-summer: The autumn past gone and winter officially here, the stench was not quite so bad, but it still stuck to the back of his throat, and he had to dodge pails of nightsoil being emptied from high windows that leaned over the winding, cobbled streets.

And yet, in spite of the stench and the nightsoil, Ser Davos felt the city around him, his onetime home with her three high hills…it was _happy_. Winter had come, but it had not yet truly touched King’s Landing, except for the lingering chill in the morning air, the fog drifting off the Blackwater to curl around their feet as he avoided rivers of horse-piss and blood from butcher’s stalls, the ground scattered with sawdust that gripped his boots as he trudged along, listening to the singing of washerwomen and the scream of seagulls as they dived about the Fish Market, fighting over discarded innards, and here and there he caught scents that took him back violently to his youth, fruit tarts baking, the stench of unwashed bodies, saltwater and sour ale and lavender growing in pots marking whorehouses, the nimble girls draped in the doorways reeking of the flower, coaxing and smiling.

Here and there, though, he saw evidence of the fear that had so recently gripped the city. The High Sparrow and all his little hateful followers; a few of the old brothels had been burned down, taverns had been hastily rebuilt, and in the markets, he noticed fewer stalls, less produce, and higher prices being bellowed about. And the Sept…or what had once been the Sept of Baelor. A tremendous crater, gouged out in the heart of the city. Children played among the ruins, as workmen struggled to clear the rubble, loading up carts. Ser Davos watched, realising…that amount of debris would be useful, come a siege. Projectiles to load the trebuchets with and shatter siege-towers, render soldiers to jelly.

The bite of smoke and steel tickled his nose, and Ser Davos followed it. He took his time, idling and observing everything. Flea Bottom was eternal, he thought; time would not change it. It felt the same as it had when he was a boy. The people looked the same, sounded the same, the children eyed his belt just the same as they had when he was young - he smiled at them, eyes twinkling: His coin-purse was tucked nowhere they were brave enough to venture.

The Street of Steel… He wandered between the forges, from smithies to armourers, seeking. He never asked, just observed.

A great hulking man with great arms muscled like basilisks hammered away at an anvil, steady and fierce, and Ser Davos almost moved on - until the man glanced to the side at the sound of a boy’s voice, and Ser Davos saw…the strong nose, fierce jaw swathed in a trimmed beard, and vivid blue eyes…

He paused in the doorway, heat already beading sweat on his brow. The man at the anvil wore breeches and a decent pair of boots, and under his leather apron, his shirt was drenched through with sweat, sleeves peeled back, brawny forearms protected by leather gauntlets.

“Thought you might’ve have rowed all the way to the Summer Isles by now,” he quipped, and the man at the anvil froze, stood up straighter, his head lifting at the sound of Davos’ voice. The man set down the sword he was working on, letting the metal glow bright hot orange-white in the embers, and slowly set down his hammer. He turned, and Ser Davos stared.

As a young lad, Gendry had been tall, well-built and good-looking. Ser Davos remembered him slim, suspicious, stubborn, brave, earnest, clever and succinct.

As a man, Gendry had grown a foot taller, his shoulders wide enough to wreck stone doorways, back heavily muscled, his strong arms scarred and shining, thighs thick. His sweat-soaked shirt showed more muscles still, and dark hair on his chest. His black hair was longer than Davos had ever seen it, curling everywhere as he sweated, the shadow of the short beard swathing his deeply masculine jaw did not quite conceal the dimple in his chin.

Gendry grinned. He still had Renly’s easy smile, Ser Davos thought, the Baratheon looks. Fierce and handsome and _strong_. He had grown into his strong features, very handsome, and fine lines crinkled the corners of his deep sapphire-blue eyes as he grinned, hinting at the time that had passed.

Ser Davos had saved a boy; he had become a man.

And he greeted Ser Davos as he would a brother, enveloping him in a tight embrace that startled a laugh from the older man as he was overwhelmed by Gendry’s size - he was _huge_.

“Ser Davos!” Gendry said warmly, and even his voice had changed - deeper, still with that innate humour and earnestness, but rich and handsome. “I was certain Stannis had killed you.”

“Almost,” Ser Davos said, his beard twitching. “Step back, let me take a look at you! They must be adding something new to the bowl o’ brown, you’re enormous.”

Gendry laughed richly. “I’m an excellent armourer and charge a fair price,” he told Ser Davos, shrugging modestly. “I’ve the money to buy meat now.”

“I can see that!” Ser Davos chuckled. Movement in the corner, and Gendry glanced around, still grinning. “Rhysand, come and say hello. This is Ser Davos Seaworth. Ser Davos, this is my son Rhysand.”

Ser Davos blinked, staring at the boy. _Son_? He was tall, in that lanky phase between childhood and manhood, as if someone had taken hold of his boots and his ears and stretched him - growing too quickly, with nothing to feed him. Not nothing, Ser Davos understood, because the lad wasn’t skinny as most Flea Bottom urchins were skinny; he was just growing that quickly. He had dark hair, violently streaked by the sun, his face faintly tanned, the skin beneath his eyes red from the sun reflecting off the water. Ser Davos knew the look of sea-burned skin. The boy had vivid blue eyes like Gendry’s, though they were a different shape, and pale rather than deep sapphire, his left eyebrow was sliced through, scarred…but that was nothing to the scars fracturing from the right corner of his mouth, some of them tickling his jaw, some stretching toward his ear. He saw Ser Davos looking at the scar, and scowled.

“Your…?”

“Not _actual_ son,” Rhysand said, rolling his harsh bright-blue eyes. “He never fucked my mother - or maybe he did - _ow_!” In a slow and practised move, Gendry clipped him round the ear, raising an eyebrow warningly. “What I mean is, I’m too old to be his son, _obviously_.”

“Rhysand has the unique talent of being insolently truthful,” Gendry said, with wry humour, eyeing the boy. He could be no older than thirteen or fourteen, tall for his age and older because of his scarring and scowl.

“He took me in,” said Rhysand simply, and Ser Davos nodded. Despite his harsh tongue and scowls, when Rhysand looked at Gendry, there was nothing but respect and fondness in his eyes. Whatever their bond, it was strong.

“Rhysand, you’d know Ser Davos as the Onion Knight…” Gendry said, and Rhysand turned those vivid pale-blue eyes on Ser Davos, reassessing. “He saved my life. You’re here because of him.”

“ _You_ were a smuggler?” Rhysand said, disbelief dripping from him; Ser Davos’ beard twitched as Gendry rolled his eyes.

“A lifetime ago,” Ser Davos sighed. “I’ve been a lot else since then.”

“Rhys, go and get Neva,” Gendry told the boy quietly. “Take a few coppers and got to the fish market. Get some white fish. We’ll have our meal. Have you eaten? Get enough for all of us, Rhys.” The boy nodded, and strode off, shouting for Neva, whoever that was. Gendry grinned. “Thirsty? There’s ale, and Neva’s fish stew is…you’ll see.”

“The boy?” Ser Davos prompted, and Gendry glanced at him, halfway through a doorway into a back room, his living quarters or the passage to them.

“He was a rigging boy on a Myrish pirate-ship,” Gendry said, his lips twitching. “I wouldn’t believe it, but for the brand on his arm. ‘P’ seared into the skin; even I know what that means.”

“He keeps that covered, I hope?”

“Always,” Gendry nodded. “Anyway…somehow he made it to King’s Landing. I found him by the docks, face split open… He’s been with me ever since.” He stared at Ser Davos. “I thought you’d been executed for helping me… When I came back to King’s Landing…my Father’s house…his people… _my_ people… I knew I had to pay it on kind, what you did for me. I can’t hold lands or titles, but when you saved my life, you showed me what it means to be a man. So, I…take care of as many of my father’s people as I can. Orphans and tired whores and blind fishermen… Especially when the Sparrows came…”

Ser Davos had not known King Robert near so well as he knew Stannis: But he knew enough to think that Gendry was already a greater man than his father ever had been.

“I heard about the Squabble of Sparrows,” Ser Davos said brusquely. “Saw the Sept.”

“What’s left of it, anyway,” Gendry shrugged, and he carried two simple clay cups and a jug out of the back-room - holding them all in one hand. He poured them out a healthy measure of good ale each, and Ser Davos accepted a cup gratefully, smiling. Gendry’s expression was scornful and angry for a moment, and he blurted, “They called themselves _pious_. Claimed to be _godly_ men. They spread nothing but hate and fear. The city was choking on it.”

“Feels as if the city’s recovered,” Ser Davos mused.

“I’ll tell you something, Cersei’s a callous bitch but she did in a morning what Maegor couldn’t do in a decade,” Gendry said. “I may wish her dead for what she did to my father - what she tried to do to me - but the city can _breathe_ again. Young whores aren’t being whipped through the streets, bastards aren’t being drowned in the Blackwater as the product of sin, the ale-houses aren’t being burned, merchants’ shops torn apart for their spreading the sin of excess…”

“You seem as if you got through it unscathed.”

“I did. I’m a skilled worker,” Gendry shrugged. “I know my value. So I armed the Faith…now I arm Lannister soldiers. Never get a second look. No-one knows me. The hardest thing was keeping Rhysand and Neva out of sight. The Faith liked things in proper order, and those two…” Gendry sighed, swallowed his ale, and glanced at Ser Davos. “I was surprised to hear Stannis died fighting in the North. He abandoned his claim on the Iron Throne?”

“He never abandoned it; just approached it from a different angle,” Ser Davos sighed. He shook his head, and sipped his ale. It was good, and flavourful. Gendry frowned at him.

“You’ve had a strange journey since we parted,” he said quietly. “Are you going to tell me some of it?”

“Aye. I believe I shall,” Ser Davos said. Gendry eyed him shrewdly.

“You didn’t come back to this city to re-establish trade, did you?” he said, and Ser Davos shook his head.

“No. I’m here on urgent business for Jon Snow,” Ser Davos said.

“Jon Snow - the Stark bastard?” Gendry blurted, his handsome face the picture of surprise.

“Aye. You’ve heard of him?”

“Bits and pieces. For months all anyone talked about in the taverns was the Battle of the Bastards. The White Wolf and his wildlings. Now he’s King in the North,” Gendry said, then frowned softly, shaking his head. “They talk about him like they used to talk about the Young Wolf, Robb Stark.”

“Perhaps he is like his brother, I don’t know - never met the last King in the North,” Ser Davos said.

“Well, hopefully the North won’t go through kings like King’s Landing does,” Gendry said.

“Indeed not,” Ser Davos said grimly, thinking back, to the sound of a direwolf’s mournful howling, a fire crackling in a small room chill with death, a snivelling man’s false promises.

“They say he and his sister reclaimed Winterfell,” Gendry said cautiously.

“Aye. Sansa Stark,” Ser Davos said, and noticed the disappointment flicker across Gendry’s sapphire eyes. “Good lass. Survived Cersei for years; she’s wily as a direwolf herself.”

He told Gendry everything, from saving himself from certain execution with a raven-scroll he had read, the details corroborating with a vision Stannis had in the flames. Their journey North, and the battle in the snows beyond the Wall. He told Gendry about Jon Snow, and Jon Snow giving the gift of mercy to Mance Rayder, a man he respected despite the fact they were enemies, as he burned. King Stannis’ hard push to Winterfell to claim it from the Boltons, to protect the North and unite it against the coming storm… Gendry had never met his cousin, and swallowed a mouthful of ale trying to dislodge the lump in his throat as he tried to tell him about Shireen. Stannis had died on the moors outside Winterfell, before he had the chance to lay siege to the castle. Knowing his plans for his only child, who Ser Davos had loved as his own, King Stannis had sent Ser Davos back to Castle Black, back to Lord Commander Jon Snow… He had become advisor to the Lord Commander.

He slipped up: He told Gendry, “He did what was right, and they _murdered_ him for it.”

Gendry blinked at him.

“The Night’s Watchmen murdered their Lord Commander? But…”

“T’was the Red Witch,” Ser Davos growled.

“She brought him back,” Gendry said easily, and Ser Davos blinked at him. Gendry explained, “With the Brotherhood, I saw…Lord Beric Dondarrion, cut down by the Hound. His friend Thoros of Myr brought him back, praying to the Lord of Light. That’s the Red Woman’s god, wasn’t it?”

“Aye, that’d be the one.”

“She brought him back,” Gendry said wonderingly, and Ser Davos nodded.

“His watch ended; he was determined to leave the Wall and everything else behind, after executing the mutineers…then his sister arrived at Castle Black,” Ser Davos sighed. “We spent months travelling the North, trying to scrounge up men to fight against the Boltons. And then it came. The Battle of the Bastards. Jon slew the bastard in single-combat, with naught but a shield against bow-and-arrows - but only after we’d almost lost the battle, and the Knights of the Vale rode in. They’d come for her - for his sister, Lady Sansa. Her cousin presides over the Vale as Lord of the Eyrie, you see.”

“Now they’ve taken their home back,” Gendry said, and Ser Davos nodded. “Ser Davos, did you ever hear anything about the Red Wedding?”

“I think we all heard enough about the Red Wedding.”

“That’s not what I meant. I never said a word before, but the Brotherhood who sold me to the Red Witch had Arya Stark; they wanted to ransom her to Lord Tully at Riverrun - her grandfather. Said they needed the gold to keep fighting. Same reason they sold me,” Gendry said, and he could talk about it now without bitterness: He never would have learned his identity, never would have met Ser Davos, whom he respected and admired, one of the two men to show him what it meant to _be_ a man. Yoren was the other. Gendry had realised that Yoren had known Arya’s secret the moment he shoved Arya among them in the dusty marketplace, her hair hacked off, calling her a boy. He had protected Arya, and Gendry. He had lost his life for his decency, but that only made Gendry believe more strongly in honour and loyalty and protecting those who could not protect themselves. Not that Arya had ever really needed protecting - except maybe from herself; she had always been far too brave than was wise. He sighed, and shook his head.

Ser Davos sighed, shaking his head. “How is it you came to be captive of the Brotherhood with Arya Stark?” Ser Davos could not hide his disbelief.

“I suppose it started with her father…maybe even with Stannis, before him, and Lord Arryn. They all came to Tobho Mott’s armoury in the weeks before they died, seeking me out, asking me about my mother. They knew what I didn’t, you see. They saw it in my face the moment they looked at me; I was Robert Baratheon’s bastard… Lord Arryn seemed shocked, he said, ‘ _The seed is strong_!’ when he looked at me. He said, ‘ _They’re nothing alike_ ’… Suppose he meant the Queen’s bastards… They’d learned the truth in my face…” Gendry sighed, shaking his head. Those men - good men, who led well and ruled justly - had died for the truth of Gendry’s birth. They had died for his _looks_. “When Ned Stark came to the capital, he visited the shop, too… He told Tobho Mott, ‘If the day ever comes when that boy would rather wield a sword than forge one, you send him to me’… Ned Stark was arrested, not long after, and I was sold to the Watch. We were set to leave the capital the day they executed Lord Stark, and _Arry_ appears with the rest of the recruits, hair freshly shorn and carrying castle-forged steel in the style of the Braavosi water-dancers’ blades. ‘Course, none of us knew who she truly was, and I think I was the one of the few who paid enough attention to realise she was a girl… But she told me who she was, eventually - when the Gold Cloaks came for us; she thought they had tracked her down, were going to drag her back to the city, to Cersei… They wanted me. The Gold Cloaks left, but they came back with the Mountain’s men. They killed Yoren. They took us prisoner at Harrenhall…we escaped, but the Brotherhood found us. Would’ve gotten away, if they hadn’t grabbed the Hound, too, and he recognised Arya. When the Red Witch bought me, that was the last time I saw Arya.”

Ser Davos stared at him. Until now he’d never breathed a word of Arya to anyone. But it was _Arya_ who Rhysand reminded him of so violently - his stubborn refusal to die, his viciousness when provoked and his hilarious, insolent truthfulness. And he was _loyal_ , like Arya. She may be a High Lord’s daughter, and Rhysand born the lowest of the low, likely a bed-slave’s son or worse, and they had had very different lives, but they were so alike in nature it was uncanny. Gendry loved Rhysand as his own: He also frustrated him near to tears sometimes. Arya had been the same.

“But the Freys took Riverrun after the Red Wedding…”

“If they had snatched Arya Stark, all of Westeros would’ve learned of it,” Ser Davos said vehemently, and he saw the disappointment and grief flicker in Gendry’s eyes.

“But if they had her… House Frey is a dead House now,” Gendry said grimly. “They’re saying that _winter came_ for House Frey, if she was there…”

“We’d have known it,” Ser Davos sighed, shaking his head. “It does no good to dwell on her fate, Gendry…believe me. There’s worse than winter coming.”

Gendry frowned at him. “What d’you mean?”

Ser Davos faltered for a heartbeat, then told him - everything. The White Walkers, Hard Home, Jon Snow letting the wildlings through the Wall, and the army of the dead, Jon’s search for obsidian that had led him to Dragonstone. Gendry listened, never interrupting, but Ser Davos could see his mind working behind those clever blue eyes.

Gendry listened, and became more and more impressed, and more homesick for _Arya_ , the only family - the only sister - he had ever had. He listened to Ser Davos’ stories of Jon Snow, and thought, _He sounds just like Arya always described him_. He told Ser Davos as much.

“It’d break his heart to hear what his sister endured,” Ser Davos said quietly.

“Have you seen it?” Gendry asked him quietly. “The army of the dead?”

“No, but -“

“But Jon Snow says he has, and you believe him?” Gendry prompted.

“I do.”

“Then I believe you,” Gendry said simply, shrugging. He refilled their cups. “I know Arya would believe her brother. The world’s ending. Thought it’d be by dragonfire the way they’re talking about what happened in the Westerlands.”

“It may yet,” Ser Davos said darkly.

“You’ve seen her?” Gendry asked. “The Dragon Queen?”

“Aye.”

“And?”

“Short in stature, but every inch a conqueror, and you’d best not forget it,” Ser Davos said, frowning. “Prideful. Arrogant.”

“You don’t like her,” Gendry noted.

“I don’t trust her. I saw what wildfire did to Stannis’s fleet at the Blackwater. She has infinite supply of it in those three dragons of hers…” Ser Davos said uncomfortably, and he scowled, his cup shaking as he raised it to his mouth, glaring into the distance as he thought of the girls… “You heard about the Lion Culling?”

Gendry’s eyes were intense as he raised them to meet Ser Davos’, and he nodded slowly. “She hunted down Lannister women and children and burned them to ashes.”

“I smuggled food to Stannis during the War her father started when he burned Rickard and Brandon Stark alive. Her father had wildfire, and it’s said he lusted for death by fire…” Ser Davos said, grimacing. “I worry about what she’d feel herself entitled to if Jon manages to convince her to ally against the Night King’s army.”

“Isn’t life enough?” Gendry blinked.

Ser Davos chuckled softly, raising his cup. “To simple folk like us.”

“To simple folk,” Gendry smiled softly, gently clinking their cups together. “What about Jon Snow? What does he think of this Dragon Queen?”

“She is a beautiful young woman, but he has no respect for her, especially not now. She’s used to getting what she wants, and she finds him infuriating and attractive,” Ser Davos said astutely. “Knows her way around a man, I’d guess - how could she get so far without learning?”

“Like the Red Woman.” Gendry’s eyes narrowed, and he seemed to suppress a shudder.

Ser Davos’ expression was murderous, he knew. He would never forgive or forget Shireen’s murder, and hoped for nothing more than the Red Witch’s return to the North - so he could execute her. Ser Davos reflected on the Red Witch, on Daenerys Targaryen. They were so similar, he realised - they were as unlike each other in looks as blood and chalk, but in their utter belief in their gods - Lady Melisandre in the Lord of Light, the Targaryen in _herself_ …their faith was infallible, they believed every act they committed was blessed by the gods, was _necessary_ , no matter how evil…because they did not believe it was evil… “And just like her, you’d meet your death by fire…”

“Jon Snow can’t have made it this far without keeping his wits about him - if he’s anything like his sister, he’s a lot cleverer than he lets on, even if his fierce heart is likely to get him killed,” Gendry said, his eyes widening subtly as he caught Ser Davos’ gaze, remembering what Ser Davos had said about the mutiny.

“You’ve no idea how right you are.” It was goodness that caused Jon’s death. _Goodness_.

“You’re going back to Winterfell?” Gendry asked.

“I’ll stay with Jon; we need to keep sending shipments of dragonglass back to White Harbour but it’s a delicate situation, and only becoming more so,” Ser Davos said, wincing and glancing at the door to the armoury: He could not see the Red Keep from here, the streets choked with people and overhanging buildings…but he hoped all was going well with the Imp and his brother the Kingslayer.

He supposed, as with Arya Stark, if Cersei had managed to get her hands on Tyrion Lannister, the entire city would have heard of it by now.

“Because the Dragon Queen is burning her way through Westeros,” Gendry said succinctly, and Ser Davos nodded.

“One of the many reasons,” he sighed.

“We bought _bread_!” Rhysand reappeared, his scarred mouth rippling as he grinned, his eyes alight, and he held up four small bread rolls scattered with seeds, and Ser Davos’ eyebrows rose in delight as a little girl entered the forge beside him, carrying two silver fish from strings. “It’s from yesterday, but it’s the good stuff!”

“Put it next to the coals,” Gendry told him, as the little girl wavered uncertainly in the entrance.

“Bless my knucklebones!” Ser Davos chuckled, as Gendry smiled warmly at the girl, and she glanced uncertainly at Ser Davos, to hurry to Gendry, behind whom she hid. “If I’d known I was to be meeting such a lovely young lady, I would’ve brushed my beard! Who might you be?”

The little girl was about six, slender as a reed and daintily made, her skin pale and without flaw, her hair glimmering like crushed pearls, and she had huge eyes pale lavender in colour. She was also exquisitely beautiful, even at such a young age.

It was a shock to see her pale hair and purple eyes, but not really. Here in King’s Landing, where there was a great deal of trade and movement between Essos, the Summer Isles and the islands of Lys and Myr, the blood of Old Valyria showed itself here and there. She was not the first child Ser Davos had ever seen with the Valyrian looks; it was only a shock, because he was so accustomed to the harsh, demanding nature of Daenerys Targaryen’s beauty.

This little girl had all the same features of Old Valyrian blood - pale skin, pale beautiful hair and even finer eyes - without any of the Queen’s severity. Softness and delicacy seemed to radiate from her, even in her plain-spun frock. Even in her bashfulness, light seemed to shine from her face, gentle and steady like the stars, not fierce like the sun or beguiling and changeable like the moon. She was barefoot, and she rubbed one foot behind her ankle as she leaned shyly into Gendry’s arm, tucking herself out of sight, nothing but a pair of light-purple eyes gazing back at him.

“This is Neva…she’s very shy around strangers,” Gendry said softly, his voice tender, as Rhysand took the two fish from the little girl. Gendry tenderly stroked her hair from her face. “My little girl’s shy,” he said affectionately, kissing her temple. “But you’d never know it, hearing her chatter away in bastard Valyrian with her brother… And this is no stranger…Neva, this is Ser Davos. You remember me telling you about him?”

“ _You_ said he _died_ ,” Rhysand said bluntly, and Ser Davos chuckled, watching Rhysand hack the tails off the little fish on a board near the fire, where a small pot was starting to steam.

“I thought he had,” Gendry said, shrugging.

“I came all this way, from the far North,” Ser Davos said coaxingly, “because I heard that a little lady named Neva makes the best fish stew in the Seven Kingdoms. Would that be right?” Pride radiated from her smile, even as she tucked her face into Gendry’s neck; he chuckled richly, winking at Ser Davos.

“I’m sure we could spare a bowl for Ser Davos, couldn’t we?” Gendry asked, and the little girl nodded. She gave him a gentle kiss on the lips, untangling herself, and went to the fireside; in a few moments, Ser Davos heard the two children rapidly speaking bastard Valyrian between them.

“D’you speak bastard Valyrian?”

“Enough to put a stop to any rebellions before they happen,” Gendry said, with a wry smile as he watched the children, and Ser Davos laughed.

“Where’s the little one from? She has the look of the Lyseni.”

“That’s exactly where she’s from,” Gendry sighed, shaking his head. “Her mother was a courtesan, a bed-slave; Neva was bred for her beauty. If you think Neva’s beautiful now, her mother was… Well, I’m not a poet, but she was stunningly beautiful, even with the scars that came later. She earned enough money to buy her freedom, and her daughter’s, and came to King’s Landing to open a pillow-house… She did well, until the Sparrows descended on the city. They burned the brothel, whipped her girls through the street, slashed her face for her _vanity_ … Rhysand found Violanthe being hassled in an alley, with Neva naked and hungry and crying to watch her mother whimpering in pain… Rhys stabbed the worm and left him - he brought them home to me, and we tucked them away safe from the Sparrows…Violanthe died a few days later, but not before asking me to look after Neva. She’s been with us ever since.”

Ser Davos sighed heavily, shaking his head.

“How long, Ser Davos?” Gendry asked, and Ser Davos glanced at him.

“How long?”

“Until…?”

“The army of the dead,” Gendry said grimly. “If Winterfell can’t stop them, how long until they reach King’s Landing?”

“If the Wall falls, and the combined might of the North can’t stop the Night King’s hordes…months,” Ser Davos said, shrugging. Jon said it wasn’t a matter of _if_ as much as _when_. The Others had not been gathering their armies for no reason. “A year at most, Jon hazards. If they breach the Wall, and Jon’s certain the Night King will find a way.”

“And what if the living win?”

“If we can stop the Night King, then, well, all we have to worry about is a Dragon Queen setting Westeros aflame to claim the ashes from Cersei Lannister,” Ser Davos said archly. Gendry frowned, watching the two children. Rhysand was wiping his hands on a cloth; Neva was humming to herself as she gently dropped chunks of white fish into the little cooking pot. On the cutting board, there was a pile of skin and scales, the fish-heads and _bones_ , the smallest of which Neva had felt out with her tiny fingertips and removed with a small needle, tongue between her teeth in concentration.

“If you were in my position, Ser Davos…between waiting for the storm, hoping the people who trust you to protect them will survive, and facing it head-on, knowing you joining the fight could make all the difference…what would you do?” Gendry asked quietly, his voice soft and thoughtful. He glanced at Ser Davos, and for a heartbeat, he was with Stannis again.

“I can’t make that decision for you. But it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind. You don’t know what it is we’re truly facing,” Ser Davos warned. “The end of all things. You don’t know that we’ll survive the Night, at all.”

“No. But I know the Starks,” Gendry said, and there was pride and a lot of respect in his voice. “If we fight, and I fall, but they live, I want them to live under Stark rule.” He nodded at the two children.

“You might die,” Ser Davos said.

“We all die,” Gendry said grimly. He shrugged, glancing away from the children. “But I’m going to choose what I die fighting for.”

The stew took moments, the fish cooking through, and turned wooden spoons were brought out, the ale shared around - it was safer for the children to drink ale than water, Ser Davos remembered. The wells in Flea Bottom were notoriously rancid. The small, seeded rolls were plucked off the embers, the ash dusted off their bottoms, and they sat in companionable silence as they ate, the lid of the pot removed, each of them helping themselves to the pot, dunking their bread, the same way Ser Davos remembered eating with his family as a boy. Large lavender eyes rested on Ser Davos, and he made a show of enjoying every mouthful - though it really was _very_ good, and he didn’t have to put it on, creamy and spicy.

“One of the neighbours taught her how to make it,” Gendry said fondly. “She takes such care with it, that’s why it’s so good. The fish is never chewy.”

“You’ve a treasure here,” Ser Davos smiled, and Neva leaned in to Gendry’s chest, gazing coyly at Ser Davos through her lashes, a smile on her plump lips.

Content, stomach full, Ser Davos folded his hands over his belly, crossing his ankles near the fire, as the children tidied the things away, Neva humming to herself prettily, Rhysand keen to take over the forge while Gendry spoke with Ser Davos.

“So…you want to come North,” he muttered. He eyed the walls and racks of weapons Gendry had forged. Dozens of swords gleamed, freshly sharpened, ready to be sold. Their craftsmanship was second-to-none - but then, Tobho Mott was the best in the city, and Gendry had apprenticed under him for years. “You’ll be needing one of those.”

“I’ve been practising,” Gendry admitted, shaking his head, and he reached for something hooked on one of the beams. He lifted down…a great war-hammer, spiked and lethal. Just from the way Gendry held it, Ser Davos - who was not a natural warrior - could tell that it was perfectly weighted, and lethal, one side wide and heavy with nine shallow spikes meant to demolish anything that got in its way, the other side boasting two long, wicked curved spikes. On the top, there was another long, gruesome spike. The steel haft was dark, near-black, and banded with bronze and wrapped with a leather grip; the head was intricately, almost lovingly detailed with dark bronze horns. “But I’m far better with this.”

“Horns,” Ser Davos observed, his beard twitching. “Not antlers?”

“Bastards can’t use their father’s arms. Besides, everyone always called me the Bull,” Gendry shrugged, and Ser Davos laughed, eyeing his great size. Even as a boy he’d been tall and strong for his age; now, he truly lived up to the nickname. “Want a look?”

“I doubt I could even lift it,” Ser Davos chuckled, and Gendry smiled. He sighed, glancing from the children to his great war-hammer. “Neva, Rhysand…get your things. We’re leaving.”

Rhysand turned, wide-eyed, then scowled. “But I haven’t finished my helm!”

“You’ll have plenty opportunity to forge armour at Winterfell.”

“Why the fuck do we want to go to Winterfell - _ow_! I mean, why in _seven hells_ would we want to go to Winterfell? - Stop!” Rhysand said, brandishing his fists at Gendry, who had clipped his ear for every curse. He gave Gendry a stubborn look, rolled his eyes, and turned to Ser Davos. “I apologise, Ser.” He turned back to Gendry, exasperated. “It’s _winter_. They say the Citadel has sent out white ravens. That means winter has come. D’you know what _happens_ in the North when it’s _winter_?”

“Yes. The Starks look after their people,” Gendry said stoutly, already moving around the forge collecting things to tuck into a leather pack, an enormous sword he strapped to his back, a dagger and a throwing-axe tucked into his belt, a sling for his hammer crossed over his front. “Think Cersei Lannister’s going to feed us all through the winter, when the Dragon Queen has just burned half the food from the Reach? We’ll be fighting another war just to survive if we stay in this city.”

“What about my girls?” asked Rhysand indignantly.

“By the gods, Rhysand - you’re too young to be chasing after girls,” Gendry said, and Ser Davos chuckled.

“ _They_ chase after _me_!” Rhysand protested. “I bear their advances as best I can!”

“My arse!” Gendry laughed, and Ser Davos smirked. “Get your things, and help Neva. Where’s your cloak?”

“What? Never ‘ad no cloak,” Rhysand grunted. An arched eyebrow from Gendry, the threat of another clip round the ear for his poor manner of speaking. “I meant, ‘Pardon? I do not own a cloak’.”

“I believe I can help with that,” said Ser Davos, his beard twitching as his eyes glinted with amusement. Rhysand raised his dark, scarred eyebrow at the old man, who smirked. “As it is I am of a mind to lighten the burden of my coin-purse. And I need a lady’s opinion on _ribbons_.” He twinkled down at Neva, who was tucking a rough doll into a small bundle of clothes, a few spare dresses and nothing more. “Do you think you could help me?”

“For yourself or the King?” Gendry teased.

Ser Davos chuckled, but his eyes dimmed. “Rosebuds and lion-cubs.”

Gendry stilled, tucking his great war-hammer into a leather sling across his front, the sword strung opposite across his back. “The survivors. They’re all on Dragonstone?!”

“Every one of them,” Ser Davos said grimly. “The only Lannisters on the mainland sit within that red castle.”

“The Queen and her brother,” Gendry said. “Or is he her lover?” Ser Davos stared at Gendry, frowning in confusion. “The Kingslayer, Ser Jaime Lannister. They took his white cloak and gave him the Lannister armies. He led the sack of Highgarden.”

“He survived the ash meadow?”

“So they say. Hard not to spot a handless man in gilded armour damn near killing his horse to reach the Red Keep. They’ve been locked up in the Keep since then, up to only the gods know what,” Gendry grunted, tucking things into his pack. “Probably trying to make more bastards, from what they say. Better to get out soon: the city’s about ready to tear itself inside-out over fear and rumour, again…”

“Aye, I feel it. The city’s holding its breath waiting for the storm. I’m of a mind not to linger,” Ser Davos said. “Come, we’ve ribbons to purchase. What’s a fine colour for little girls, do you think?”

Neva glanced at Gendry, who gave her an encouraging smile. Quietly, her voice soft as silk, Neva said, “ _Purple_.”

“Purple. The lady has spoken,” Ser Davos said, smiling fondly. He offered his hand, and Neva shyly took it as Gendry climbed up into the eaves, and Ser Davos heard the stifled sound of coins slinking and sliding against leather. “Best tuck that somewhere none’ll be tempted to root about for it…though you’re in danger from every woman in this city!” Gendry smiled, tucking his coin-purse around his neck, out of sight. Beside him, Rhysand was arming himself with several wicked knives. Ser Davos murmured to Gendry, “Does he know how to use one of them?”

“Better than I can,” Gendry muttered back, giving Ser Davos a telling look. “When I found him at the docks, he was bloodied and dying…I took him to the armoury, patched him up, tucked him into bed - when he woke he tried to knife me. Vicious little beast - said he’d been rigging-boy on a Myrish pirate-ship. Wasn’t used to kindness, except from a whore the captain kept on-board - though I’m not sure it was _kind_ what she did to him. He’s very comfortable with concealed blades.”

“And this is the gentled version?” Ser Davos asked, as Rhysand strode out of the armoury.

“He’s vicious when provoked, but he’s a good lad,” Gendry said fondly, and they cast their eyes upward, ever watchful for nightsoil being dumped out of windows. “He just…wanted someone to love him. And he’d murder anyone who tried to hurt Neva…”

“Or you, I’d imagine,” Ser Davos observed.

“He reminds me of Arya Stark,” Gendry said warmly. “It’s those fierce eyes. Spine strong as steel.”

“Jon never talks of her.”

“Arya?”

“Or the elder, his twin. Larra. According to Lady Stark, they were his favourites, though she said it without bitterness…just grief,” Ser Davos sighed heavily. “They were her sisters, too. Jon’s twin, lost beyond the Wall. Their youngest sister, lost the day Ned Stark lost his head.”

“She wasn’t lost; Yoren hid her in plain sight,” Gendry said thoughtfully. “I’m surprised she’s not made her way home.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Arya Stark never needed protecting: People needed protecting _from her_ ,” Gendry said, his face alight with amusement. “She was fearless. A _fearless_ she-wolf.”

“You loved her.”

“She was the only family I ever had. She asked me to go with her to Winterfell…I thought I’d join the Brotherhood, be part of something great… I didn’t understand… I should’ve gone with her,” Gendry said regretfully, shaking his head, and they dodged a car loaded with turnips. “Still…here we are all the same. Heading North.”

“Hopefully a fairer journey than your last,” Ser Davos said.

“Thank you, Ser Davos,” Gendry said earnestly. “It should be me repaying you. Though I don’t know how such a debt is ever repaid.”

“It was never a debt,” Ser Davos told him.

“I fully expected Stannis to execute you - over _me_.”

“One innocent life is worth everything,” Ser Davos said stoutly. “You agree, or those children would be dead.”

“When I learned who I was - who my father was - and you helped me escape… I’ve never forgotten that I’m alive because you did what was right, no matter the price you had to pay,” Gendry said solemnly.

“Save one person, save the world,” Ser Davos said simply.

They found a fine tailor’s emporium, with a milliner’s attached, and little Neva’s eyes widened with awe as walls of _colour_ spread out of sight, rich fabrics from all over the world, heavy furs and the most delicate of Qartheen lace, shimmering velvets, silks light as air, and _ribbons_ … Fat ribbons, skinny ribbons, silver ribbons, embroidered ribbons, woven ribbons, beaded ribbons, velvet and gossamer and samite and silk. Ser Davos knew the girl had never seen so many colours before in her life, from the daintiest pearl-pink to cloth-of-gold to the most vibrant ruby-red - very popular, they were told. Undoubtedly; the Queen’s colours.

Gendry gave Ser Davos an uncomfortable but grateful look as he ordered new winter clothes - for Gendry, and the children, including thick warm wool cloaks, a fur for their shoulders, and good strong boots.

“Ser Davos -“

“Don’t. I know what you’re about to say,” Ser Davos said, his beard twitching. “It’s my pleasure. I’m bringing you North to gods-know-what, the least I can do is properly clothe you and your little ones. Now - tunics for the lad and dresses for the little lady. Wool for both, if you please, and the finest Northern wool you have to hand, none of that rough-spun shite from Essos. And plenty of room for them to grow. And a leather jerkin for the young man. For the Bull, good strong leather, cotton and wool.” He chuckled at Gendry’s small smile.

“Any colour preferences, Ser?” the attendant asked Gendry.

“Black would be more practical,” Ser Davos spoke up when Gendry looked uncomfortable, and Gendry smiled.

“My father’s colours,” he said softly.

While they were outfitted, Gendry’s clothing tailored to his enormous size, and Rhysand was fitted with strong boots of fine leather - protesting against having to wear them at all, too used to the freedom and movement afforded his bare feet on-board ship - Ser Davos coaxed Neva to the wall of ribbons, and let her take her pick. She picked out the prettiest, some plain, some intricate - some were vibrant dark sapphire, like Gendry’s eyes, and some were delicate, pale mauve, perhaps like her dead mother’s eyes. She fancied the rose and sky-blue silks, cloth-of-gold ribbon woven in intricate love-knots, violet silk, fresh pale spring-green silk, a wide velvet-trimmed ribbon embroidered with tiny colourful beads like a posy of flowers, sunset-orange taffeta that shimmered fuchsia in the light, pale-yellow that glowed like candlelight, and crimson velvet.

He had told her they were for several sad little girls, and he needed her help to pick them out so they’d smile again. She was to pick the loveliest ribbons she could find.

“The last one, then,” he said coaxingly, and Neva drifted along the coils, not daring to reach out and touch the fabrics - intuitive about the suspicious glances of the attendants, their eyes on her and Rhysand like hawks ever since entering the grand shop, too grubby, too common, too bluntly-spoken - too _poor_. Neva stopped, and smiled, pointing a tiny finger. “Oh, now, that’s a _lovely_ colour. Reminds me of the chicory flowers that grow by my home in Cape Wrath.”

“Just the one more,” Ser Davos told the attendant in a low voice, giving them a subtle wink. “Neva, why don’t you go see to your brother, he sounds as if he is being murdered. I’m sure he’s just making a fuss.” Neva nodded, cast one subtle, longing look back at the ribbons, and skipped away to find Rhysand, who did sound as if he was engaging in a skirmish for his life - he was being fitted for new shirts. Ser Davos wasn’t forcing true finery onto the boy, just strong cotton shirts and a thick wool tunic, but it certainly sounded as if he was being tortured. There was a wildness to Rhysand, no doubt, as if he had been made of wind, earth, fire and sea - and there was no trapping him inside such mortal coils as _clothing_. Ser Davos was reminded of the wild rigging-boys of his own smuggling days - brave lads up for anything. As soon as Neva had disappeared, Ser Davos nodded to the attendant. “Which is the one she kept looking at so admiringly?”

“The plum velvet, Ser,” said the attendant, at once.

“A length of that, if you please, long enough to bind the girl’s hair however she should wear it,” Ser Davos said, thinking how he had never made a gift of ribbons to Princess Shireen, and never had a daughter of his own to treat to such things.

“Certainly, Ser. Anything else you require?”

“Aye. D’you happen to have embroidery threads? I’ve a mind to make a gift to a young lady who has considerable skill with a needle,” Ser Davos said. To his recollection, Lady Sansa had sewn every night, even travelling through the North to rally their bannermen. She sewed her own gowns, and shirts for Jon, the direwolf-embossed great-cloak he always wore.

Sometimes, Ser Davos wondered if the cloak meant far more to the young man than the crown. The lady’s needlework, his father’s sigil.

“Certainly, Ser,” the attendant said, and disappeared with a bow after snipping a healthy length of the plum velvet ribbon from its bobbin. Ser Davos sighed, and thought of Shireen as he gazed at the neat little knots of ribbon ready to go. She had never seen such vibrant colours, such fine fabrics. All her life, except for the last, brutal chapter of it, had been spent in a dismal chamber at Dragonstone. When the attendant returned, he held two handfuls of vibrantly-coloured skeins of cotton embroidery threads. His wife Marya bought such, always separating out the threads to adjust the thickness of her embroidery.

“That’ll do very well,” Ser Davos nodded, examining the array of colours. “It won’t get the lady through the winter entirely, but she’ll have it to hand to make herself something pretty when the snows block out all the colour in the world.”

“Would you care to have everything boxed, Ser?”

“No, thank you. A canvas sack would be better - we shall be travelling light, no room for bulky packages,” Ser Davos informed the attendant. “And I would settle the bill before the young man finishes his fitting.”

“Of course, Ser.”

“Ser Davos…” They tumbled out of the emporium, Rhysand vibrating with dismay at the softness and tailored snugness of his new clothes, clutching at several parcels while Gendry and Ser Davos carried the rest between them - Gendry now dressed in fine new leather trousers buttoned to the waist and a black shirt of treated, double-thickness cotton with buttons down the right shoulder, with a heavy wool cloak folded under one arm - while Neva hummed and clasped Ser Davos’ hand and he led the way out of the city.

At the tiny little beach, and the small smugglers’ boat nestled in the sand, Gendry levelled a black look at Ser Davos. “Not more rowing?”

“It’d be a shame to waste all that training,” Ser Davos smirked, his beard twitching, and Gendry scoffed, grinning easily.

“So is there a reason you’re not docked in the wharf?” Gendry asked, while they waited; their purchases were safely nestled in the boat, and Rhysand was currently tormenting Neva with long ropes of seaweed. They watched him chase her across the sand, her giggles echoing off the cliff-face. “Or is it just that old habits die hard.”

“Needs must, I’m sorry to say,” Ser Davos said, glancing a Gendry.

“How’s that?”

“I had some important cargo that needed to reach the Red Keep unencumbered by our friends the Gold Cloaks,” Ser Davos said, sighing, as he noticed someone staggering down the hewn staircase. He squinted at the figure, who looked more than halfway into his cups. “Ah. Looks like he’s returned. Best get the children into the boat, don’t want to linger in case he was followed.”

Lord Tyrion staggered down the last few hewn steps, wine-skin in hand. He stumbled, and fell, landing heavily in the sand with a groan delayed by his drunkenness.

“Mind grabbing him?” Ser Davos asked, wincing. “You’re the stronger. And he’s heavier than he looks.”

“Is that the Imp?” Gendry asked him, his face sombre and shrewd. He frowned at Ser Davos, then sighed, shaking his head, and strode across the beach to the foot of the stone staircase. While Ser Davos situated the children - Neva was quiet and watchful, while Rhysand lolled easily - Gendry managed to get Lord Tyrion on his feet, and guided the drunkard to their little boat as if herding sheep. Lord Tyrion hummed to himself and drank and staggered the entire way. He tumbled into the boat rather inelegantly, and Ser Davos left him there, with the two children peering down at him, a wealthy man in considerably finer clothing than their own, hugging a wine-skin, belching freely and murmuring to himself. Gendry pushed the boat out into the water, as Rhysand engaged the paddles - a laughable thing, to row their weight, but he got them past the gentle waves, and was dextrous enough to clamber about the boat without upsetting it when Gendry indicated for him to move from the bench, so that he could take over the rowing. He was by far the strongest of them all.

Lord Tyrion hiccupped, and rolled in the damp bottom of the boat, turning to frown first at Rhysand, who was leering down at him as if he had already sliced Lord Tyrion’s purse-strings and pocketed the contents - then Neva, blinking rather stupidly, until finally he turned and his gaze rested on Gendry. It was at that point, the drunk fool tried to stand up, and ended up half in the young Bull’s lap. He reached up, grabbing Gendry’s strong jaw, and Gendry looked amused and a little affronted as Lord Tyrion stared him dead in the face, swaying as much from the drink as the water.

“Robert?” he blurted disbelievingly. He released Gendry’s jaw, sighed, and dropped his wine-skin. “Too much strong-wine.” He was slurring rather a lot.

“How did it go?” Ser Davos prompted.

“Let me sleep this off and I’ll share all I can recall,” Lord Tyrion said, settling himself down against Gendry’s folded cloak. He sat with his eyes closed, yawning widely. “If I am speaking, I imagine my head remains safely lodged upon my shoulders and my sweet sister failed to detain and eviscerate me.”

“Lord Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen,” Ser Davos said, his beard twitching, though his eyes were grim. Lord Tyrion raised a hand, gasped, and almost fell overboard with the enthusiasm of his hurling.

“Oh, dear…” Rhysand grinned.

“Better out than in,” Ser Davos tutted.

“Can’t you handle your drink?” Rhysand snickered.

“ _Rhysand_.”

“Oi!” Rhysand started as Gendry smacked him round the back of the head; Rhysand tucked the wine-skin out of the way, stoppering it. “ _What_ , I was only - fine.”

“This is Gendry,” Ser Davos told Lord Tyrion, when he had recovered enough to stare gloomily around at them. “Rhysand, stealing your strong-wine, and this little lady is Neva.”

“The ghost of Old Valyria,” Lord Tyrion slurred, his eyes on Neva. He rolled his head to the side, to peer up at Gendry. “And of dead stags.”

“Can you keep your thoughts to yourself before your liege, or shall Gendry leave you floating in the Blackwater?” Ser Davos asked severely.

“Had I been in King’s Landing to stop Cersei sending Gold Cloaks after Robert’s bastards the first time, I would have - I won’t start handing innocent men over to unstable sovereigns now,” Lord Tyrion said. That he could string together a complete sentence was miraculous, Ser Davos thought; that he could sound so condescending and elegant at the same time, truly a gift. He frowned and gazed around the boat “Where’s Varys?”

“Told me not to wait for him to return; he has business on the mainland.”

Lord Tyrion dropped his head back, sighing heavily, and his fingers flicked expressively as he murmured, “‘The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling’… Wonderful. He _dragged_ me halfway across the world, only to abandon me with her…” He groaned, and sat up a little straighter, eyeing the packages in the bottom of the boat. “What’s all this? Treasures for the Queen? I don’t think ribbons will distract her from desiring the North - or your King in her bed.”

“They’re for the girls. Tell me your journey was not wasted,” Ser Davos said. “Did you manage to speak to your brother, at least?”

“I did. He hates me.” Lord Tyrion reached for his wine-skin, his expression despondent.

“You killed your father with a crossbow while he was in the privy…not that anyone really blames you,” Gendry said, and Lord Tyrion glanced at him as he drank deeply of the wine-skin. “Accusing you of killing the King, when it was likely the Old Lion himself who did it to get the vicious boy off the Iron Throne before he could do any more damage - and wanted you dead to wed Sansa Stark himself.”

Lord Tyrion choked. He lowered the wine-skin, grinning. “Is that what they’re saying?”

“People say she’s very beautiful,” Gendry shrugged. “That your father coveted her. They said that’s why she disappeared when King Joffrey was poisoned - your father had her spirited away to the Rock…”

Lord Tyrion threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“Oh, that’s tickled me!”

“Now people say she’s a skin-changer like her brothers, takes the form of a monstrous red direwolf; that’s how she made her way north and fought beside her brother the White Wolf to reclaim Winterfell during the Battle of the Bastards.” He howled with laughter, hugging his skin of strong-wine as he wheezed, wiping the tears from his scarred face.

He was still gleeful as a ship appeared, its sails plain but the figurehead very clearly a monstrous direwolf. Ser Davos caught Gendry’s eye.

“At least you don’t have to row all the way back to Dragonstone.”

Neva turns to Gendry with wide eyes as a rope ladder descended nearby; Rhysand yawned, clearly bored, and clambered up, nimble and quick, hopping over the side.

“You go first, I’ll catch you if you fall,” Gendry told Neva gently. As Rhysand appeared overhead, he coaxed and cooed to her, spurring her on. Lord Tyrion ascended next, and Gendry and Ser Davos brought up the rear, hooking the little dinghy up to lowered ropes to be hauled up by the sailors as soon as they were on-board.

“How long will the journey take?” Gendry asked, gazing around the ship.

“With this good, strong wind?” Ser Davos said, checking the sails. “We’ll reach Dragonstone in about two days’ time.”

“So soon?”

“How long did it take you to row back to King’s Landing?”

Gendry glanced at Ser Davos, his expression wry. “ _Longer_.”


	29. Look After One Another

**Valyrian Steel**

_29_

_Look After One Another_

* * *

The ship glided into the bay, the sails filled by a helpful wind. As they swept past, Rhysand stood with Neva carefully balanced in his arms, leaning over the side, speaking in bastard Valyrian as he pointed out various unique features of the different kinds of ships gathered in the bay. And it was full of ships - battered Greyjoy longships; newly-built cogs and carracks, and the great war-galley _Winter_ , all belonging to the fledgling Northern fleet; Queen Daenerys’ beautiful flagship, a swan-ship from the Summer Isles, modified with one hundred oars and a figurehead of a three-headed dragon; and the gorgeous Tyrell fleet. Gendry watched them, with a contented smile on his face, passing a wine-skin back to Tyrion.

With nothing else to do, and no-one else to talk to but the ship’s rather recalcitrant Northern crew, Tyrion had decided on making a study of Gendry and his children, to entertain himself through the brief journey. He had spent quite some time with Gendry, enough to understand that Gendry was once prisoner of Lord Tywin at Harrenhall, saved from torture to work in the forges, and that Gendry was indeed Robert Baratheon’s bastard son. Tyrion needed little confirmation - it was there in Gendry’s fierce, handsome face for all to see, and Tyrion couldn’t help smirking to himself at Cersei’s audacity, thinking to pass off her own bastards as Robert’s offspring - one glimpse of Gendry and Robert’s Hands had known the truth of the thing. And here they all were.

Tyrion had also discerned that Gendry, despite being uneducated, was a shrewd, clever man with integrity, wit and charisma, gentle and strong and loyal with good instincts, a natural way with people and adaptable. He also did not seem to possess Robert’s notorious wrath, or his infamous _lusts_. Tyrion thought the son was much more _thoughtful_ than the father ever was, considerate and showing great empathy, but with a heaping of good sense. Gendry wasn’t a natural sailor, and neither was Tyrion, and they got along well, while Gendry’s adopted son Rhysand scampered around like a monkey, flinging himself up masts, hanging out of the crow’s nest, his laughter echoing on the wind, his face alight with joy - “ _Freedom_ ,” he sighed lustily, “ _that’s_ what a ship is. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship _needs_. What a ship _is_ …is _freedom_.”

The boy seemed to come alive on the ship, and Tyrion noticed the slightly pained way Gendry watched the boy. He was apprenticed to Gendry in the armoury, but Tyrion believed Gendry was shrewd enough to understand that _this_ was where Rhysand truly felt _alive_. If Rhysand finished his apprenticeship, he would not long labour in a forge: It was the _sea_ , for him. That beguiling, treacherous mistress.

Tyrion was just glad he had not had to make the journey in a crate. They had been discussing Gendry’s journey _from_ Dragonstone as they swept into the harbour, and his handsome face pinched with something close to anger, or more accurately, _distrust_ , as the great eerie fortress loomed into view, shrouded by mist, the great dragon-shaped towers coiled ready to pounce.

“Never saw it in the light,” Gendry said, frowning. “It has the feel of Harrenhall.”

A curious observation, Tyrion felt. One had been forged and crafted by dragonfire; the other had been destroyed by it.

Dragonstone and Harrenhall. Two sides of the same coin.

“Er… _Dragon_?!” Rhysand blurted, gaping up at the skies, and a heartbeat later, a piercing shriek and rumbling, gurgling call shattered the tranquil air, and a great green-and-bronze _dragon_ swooped down out of the air not fifty feet from the starboard side, created a tremendous splash, and screamed again, his great wings beating swiftly and threatening to knock them over, as they stood, and gaped, and watched the dragon pluck a dolphin from the water with ease, each beat of its wings like thunderclaps as it rose higher into the air, tossed the dolphin from its claws, to roast it with a swift blast of fire, and in another heartbeat, opened its gullet to swallow the charred creature whole.

“Ah… Feeding-time,” Tyrion said drily, as Gendry suddenly found himself at the starboard side, gaping in awe. A dragon. A real, live dragon… “We’ve interrupted the hunt. The green is Rhaegal. His brothers will be along swiftly, they do quarrel over dinner…”

Sure enough, Viserion the white-and-gold dragon, and Drogon the Dread, black glowing with blood-red veined through his wings, appeared moments later, and as the ship sailed through the bay toward the harbour, they watched the dragons fishing for their supper. Every time they made a catch, they soared into the air, and repeated the same process Rhaegal had - catch, fling, roast, consume.

“Dragons and men are the only creatures in the world to cook their meat,” Tyrion mused, glancing up at Gendry, but his eyes were still on Rhaegal, awe and terror warring on his fiercely handsome face. For a heartbeat, Tyrion wondered what Robert might have looked like, had he met Rhaegar on the Trident - riding a _dragon_! Without even seeming to see her, Gendry picked up little Neva, who had her arms raised to be carried: She climbed up, and settled on his shoulders, the better to gaze up at the dragons as they soared above them, circling for their prey.

It was quite something, Tyrion thought, to watch the exquisite beauty of a Lyseni child, the last blood of Old Valyria, gazing in rapture at the dragons, dragons that had once filled the skies, dragons that her ancestors had once ridden.

Rhysand was the bolder, no doubt, he was a force of nature, irrepressible: He scowled up at the dragons in suspicion and dread. Not so the gentlest creature Tyrion might ever have met, sweet Neva who hummed when she was content - and she seemed to be always content, whether it was skipping to and fro along the deck, playing hopscotch, or cuddled up in her adopted-father’s arms, tucked warm and safe against his enormous chest, his scarred, skilled hands tender as he held her close and she dozed. Neva, delicate, gentle and easily content, gazed up into the skies as if in thrall to the great beasts, her exquisite lavender eyes, pale, radiant and gentle, wide with _reverence_ , not fear.

The dragons called to her, or so it seemed. They ignited in her the memories of a lost race, the memories of a people forgotten to the Doom. Tyrion smiled fondly at her, understanding her completely.

“The first time I ever saw a dragon,” Tyrion said softly, “we were sailing a little boat through the Doom of Valyria…I thought, for a moment, it was my mind’s trick - the memories of a thousand years, the ghosts of dragons long dead… Not a ghost. Not a memory… Flesh and fire, reborn into the world… Magnificent beautiful creatures, are they not?” He smiled fondly, for though they were harrowing when they were enraged, they were entrancingly beautiful.

“They are,” Gendry said, his voice faraway, disbelieving - but he was frowning softly, bemused. He blinked several times, then turned to Tyrion. “I saw what they’re capable of with my own eyes, at Harrenhall. Stone _melted_ like candles. We all heard about the ash meadow and the Lion Culling… They would be _more_ beautiful if they were less deadly.”

“Some would disagree,” Tyrion said, gazing thoughtfully at Gendry, whose eyes had returned to Rhaegal, the great green-and-bronze, named for the man his father had killed in single-combat. A flicker of unease whispered through Tyrion at the thought of what awaited them at the castle - _who_ awaited them. Were she to find out the truth of Gendry’s paternity… “To some…the more _power_ they display, the more deadly they are, the more attractive they become.”

“Sounds familiar,” grunted Ser Davos, and Tyrion glanced at him. The tone in his voice, the grim distrust and thinly veiled repugnance emanating from the Onion Knight as he watched the dragons, his eyes flicking to the eerie castle, Tyrion knew he had inadvertently described…well…Daenerys. He sighed.

“ _That’s_ what their fire is for,” Gendry remarked, as Drogon dived, a dolphin in each clawed foot. “To feed themselves. Not to burn little children.” Tyrion winced at Gendry, who was watching shrewdly as Drogon tossed the dolphins into the air, and gave a spurt of flame that roasted both, consuming them before Viserion could screech and circle and dive upon him from above. The two brothers fought, and Tyrion noted that Viserion went for the tender skin of Drogon’s neck, still healing. Strange…Rhaegal and Viserion, fractionally smaller than Drogon, had never attacked their vicious brother before. Rhaegal was the more vicious of the two, anyway. It was strange to see Viserion attacking.

 _They are still animals_ , he thought. _They sense weakness and attack_. And Drogon, no matter how monstrous, was still a creature that bled like any other when he was wounded. Viserion slashed out at Drogon’s neck with his talons: Rhaegal swooped in out of nowhere, butting all his considerable weight against Viserion, sending the white-and-gold dragon hurtling into the water with a wrathful bellow. Rhaegal shrieked, and Drogon purred, both rising away from the water, soaring over the shivering green swells of the island with its jagged cliffs and small, treacherous beaches and coves.

They sailed into the shelter of the harbour, and Tyrion almost groaned with ecstasy at the thought of disembarking the ship…until he remembered the walk that awaited him, and the fact that he would have to consider very carefully how to present Lord Varys’ disappearance to the Queen, even as he confirmed that his brother Jaime had agreed to peace-talks on his Queen’s behalf.

Did he tell Daenerys the reason _why_ Jaime had agreed? Because he had been one of the few survivors of Ash Meadow, and Jaime dreaded Daenerys’ use of all three of her dragons to burn Westeros to claim the ashes.

How Tyrion had coaxed, wheeled, threatened, begged and entreated Jaime to do all in his power to convince Cersei it was in her interests to meet, because Tyrion dreaded Daenerys’ use of all three of her dragons to burn Westeros and claim the ashes.

Neva beside him as they descended the ramp onto the quay, Tyrion was reminded of the seven little Lannisters locked up in the castle. He had left them in the care of Tisseia, who had a wonderful sort of practical motherliness to her. Truth be told, she seemed far more intuitive about the girls’ needs than Tyrion had expected. She was unfazed by anything that came her way - a good thing, for a whore. _Former whore_ , he thought. She was his _companion_ now, sworn to him alone and paid well for the privilege. But he had learned from prior mistakes: and Tisseia was not… _her_ …she was practical and cheerful, not purring with sensuality, somewhat startled as much as she was delighted by the finery he lavished upon her, as his companion, as his advisor and she who massaged his lower-back to soothe his aching legs, who listened if he needed her to, and offered her solid wisdom when asked.

Tyrion had to admit, he had unknowingly unearthed a treasure when he sought her out in that brothel on the Long Bridge on their return journey. She was adaptable and clever, and he had spent many pleasurable evenings on their voyage from Volantis, teaching her how to read. She was clever, astute and a quick study - and she had somehow managed to take over the organisation of his household and his work as Hand, so that everything ran smoothly, though he had never asked her, and had no idea how she knew exactly what he needed before _he_ knew what he needed.

Plus, she had the most magnificent breasts he loved to bury his face in as she rode him, writhing and doing the most glorious thing with her hips that made him regret not fucking her that first day he had seen her. He had thought her pretty then, in her way, dark-eyed and cautious. She was all those things; but she was also far more beautiful than he had realised, radiating softness and warmth, steadiness and empathy. And she suckled his cock as if the gods had crafted it for her alone to enjoy, bringing him to come with his eyes rolling so hard he feared temporary blindness. The more time they spent together, the more he saw of the true Tisseia, who was emboldened to ask for what she liked, so that they _both_ reached their pleasure, and it was a wondrous thing to watch blossom, in a girl whose face still bore the mark of her enslavement. She had never known what it was to be treated as a _person_ , much less an equal in their bed-sport: She had _endured_ what men paid her master for, with a smile on her face - or a whimper, if that’s what they wanted most. But to be asked what she liked, and to devote his time to helping her discover what it was that made her writhe in ecstasy, and ache for his touch…that was a heady thing to observe, this slave-girl becoming her own woman unafraid to first ask for and then take what she wanted.

Best of all, he thought, trying to ignore the flicker of anticipation at the thought of her warm, dimpled smile and glittering dark eyes, when he had asked her to forsake all other men while she was his, she had claimed she would rather have none at all, if it were up to her. She could happily do without being pestered, she had told him: Tisseia was just so blunt and earnest, it was truly refreshing. She was…almost _Northern_ in her outlook, and at times, she seemed unimpressed by his status or wealth or whatever - she just liked that he was kind, and enjoyed cuddling up to her under their furs at night, enjoying the rarest and simplest of intimacies.

Tisseia fucked him because he was a considerate lover, and the gods had given him one blessing - two, if one counted his enormous, throbbing intellect - and he made certain she enjoyed every moment of their time together. Yet, she had told him, she would be happy to take no other man, even when he tired of her. She did not luxuriate in her whoredom, as others had: It was a thing necessary for her survival. And yet she had found something else that made her…almost irreplaceable to him, Tyrion thought. She was kind and affectionate, but he was under no illusions that she had fallen madly in love with the idea of him; they were…friends, Tyrion thought, marvelling. They were _companions_ , who fucked when he wanted to, and talked when she didn’t. And she took care of him. Not just in bed, but in all aspects of his life. She was earnest, shrewd and attentive.

Tyrion was not _in love_ with her: But he did adore her. He did _love_ her, and it was a calm and steady sort of love rooted in their companionship, in a mutual respect and appreciation. No, they were not _lovers_ in the traditional sense; they were companions.

If that was the best he could hope for, Tyrion thought, then he realised he was a very privileged man.

Perhaps that was where it had all gone wrong before.

He had tried to take care of too many people who did not appreciate it, who had betrayed him in spite of it: Tisseia… _took care_ of him, without him ever having asked her. Not because of the gold - she was utterly unfamiliar with _payment_ \- but because it was her nature, to be gentle and restrained and considerate.

He was in a high mood, in spite of the winding stone stair, as they approached Dragonstone, anticipating climbing under the furs and drifting off to sleep with his head nestled against her glorious breasts with his hand tucked between her thighs.

Tyrion practically _skipped_ up the stone steps, for the first time _not_ envious of Gendry’s long strides, and his ease as he carried Neva on his shoulders, so that she could better watch the three dragons circling and wheeling overhead.

Jon met them in the monstrous entrance hall, with Rhysand shrinking into Gendry, his eyes suspicious and filled with dread, the cavernous black walls glistening and shimmering with eerie iridescence, the entire hall crafted by ancient magic and dragonfire to resemble the inside of a dragon’s mouth, the walls jagged high above and along the floor to mimic dragon’s teeth long and sharp as swords…

The King in the North saw his advisor back safe and sound, grinned briefly, and embraced him like a brother.

“Saw the harbour,” Ser Davos said, in greeting. “It’s looking busy. You’re prepared?”

“A few more days, we should be ready for the return voyage,” Jon said, nodding, and he heaved a sigh, kneading his eyes. The young man did look tired, and Tyrion wondered how court had been - wondered how the _Queen_ had been.

“Days?” Tyrion blurted, staring up at Jon, almost aghast. Lord Varys disappeared, the arrival of Robert Baratheon’s bastard, the King’s departure, anticipating a summit in King’s Landing - Tyrion stifled a groan.

“I’m anxious to see the thing done,” Jon said grimly, and eyed the giant hulking behind Ser Davos, his two children, dark and fair, tucked against him, one spooked by the massive, menacing hall, the other shy by nature.

“Ah, Your Grace, this is Gendry Waters,” Ser Davos said, and Tyrion shot him a shrewd look. Gendry was staring at Jon, who was staring right back with a shrewd expression. His eyes drifted to Ser Davos for a heartbeat, a question in his dark grey eyes.

“You don’t much look like him, but you’re _exactly_ as she described,” Gendry said, and Jon raised his eyebrows, staring at Gendry, who, Tyrion realised, was taller even than the King. They were both very tall, but Gendry more so, and where Gendry was broad and rippled with muscle, sturdy and immovable, Jon was lean and graceful. They were both _handsome_ , Tyrion noted miserably, as well as monstrously _tall_ …

If he didn’t know the men, and the lives they had led, Tyrion might have thought the gods had blessed them. He knew better.

“Excuse me?” Jon blinked, bemused.

“Your father, Lord Stark. I met him, once, in King’s Landing, when he was Hand of the King,” Gendry explained. “He came to my shop.”

“Your shop?”

“Gendry is an armourer, Your Grace,” Ser Davos smiled.

“But you won’t be needing one, with a sword like _that_ ,” Gendry said, his eyes dipping to Jon’s waist, where Long Claw was belted. “It’s an old blade, but sharp as the day it was forged - a new pommel?”

“Aye. The original was shaped as a bear, when it was held by House Mormont,” Jon said. “But it was damaged by fire. The pommel was remade before the blade was given to me.” Jon frowned, and a flicker of something close to guilt crossed his face, as he glanced over his shoulder; the Queen’s men approached.

“She didn’t say you had a Valryian steel sword,” Gendry said, his eyes on the blade that was becoming almost as famous as the man who wielded it.

“Who?”

“Arya.”

For a moment, Tyrion truly believed Jon’s heart had stopped. Even he turned to gape at the young armourer.

“Arya Stark? No word has been heard of her since they arrested her father,” Tyrion said, startled. Even Varys’ little birds could sing no songs of her - and Tyrion had ensured every effort went into finding the younger Stark girl.

“Who’s Arya?” the boy Rhysand frowned. He stared at Jon. “Who are you?”

“Rhysand, this is Jon Snow, the King in the North,” Ser Davos said, his beard twitching. Rhysand stared at Ser Davos. Stared at Jon Snow. Stared at Tyrion.

Ser Davos chuckled. Jon Snow was still staring at Gendry.

“You’ve seen Arya?” he breathed.

“It was a few years ago now, Your Grace, but, yes, I did. I travelled the Riverlands with her,” Gendry told him.

“ _How_?!”

“Another time,” Ser Davos said cautiously, eyes shrewd as he watched the Queen’s men approaching. He nodded at Jon. “Let’s get Gendry and the children settled, and we can share a bowl of soup and a few good stories.”

Jon glanced from Ser Davos to Gendry, and nodded. Tyrion stifled a sigh; as the Queen’s Hand, he knew he would not be privy to those stories, the information that they granted. And information…was currency, he thought, reminded of Lord Varys. _Influence_ … He had to break the news that Lord Varys had not returned to Dragonstone, though Tyrion had the wit to inspire Daenerys’ confidence in her Master of Whisperers; Lord Varys was better served on the mainland than on this godsforsaken island surrounded by Daenerys’ supporters - he needed to be out there, gathering information on her enemies by any means necessary.

Rhysand was muttering quietly to Neva in bastard Valyrian, his bright, sharp eyes dancing from Jon Snow to Ser Davos and Tyrion himself: Finally, as the Stark men led the way through the gaping entrance hall, Rhysand turned to his young, adopted-father, as if he had never seen Gendry before, and blurted, “Who _are_ you?”

How many bastard armourers rubbed elbows with Kings, notorious smuggler-knights and dead girls?

 _Who, indeed_? Tyrion thought, as the Stark party disappeared up one of the grand obsidian staircases, and Missandei appeared, escorted by two Unsullied guards. She was smiling benignly.

“Her Radiance the Queen welcomes you back to Dragonstone, my Lord Hand,” Missandei said formally. “After you have dined and rested, she bids you join her in the Chamber of the Painted Table. She would know the triumphs of your journey to King’s Landing.”

“Triumphs?” Tyrion scoffed. “I made it out with my head on my shoulders, at least. But I shall dine and rest, and thank the Queen for the opportunity.”

“You still dislike the water, my lord?” Missandei smiled knowingly.

“The water dislikes _me_ , my dear Missandei,” Tyrion grunted, his legs aching at the prospect of climbing more stairs. He had a mind to outfit the steep ascent with a _funicular_ as they had at the Rock. It would be armoured, he thought, of course, with steel plate between varnished wood for durability - and inside, oh, _decadence_! Leather upholstery and polished wood. Furs, hot bricks and mulled wine for the winter; and a lithe, bare-breasted girl to fan him in the summer and feed him iced cream and blueberries. He glanced at Missandei. “How has court been in my absence?”

“We have missed you, my lord,” Missandei said. “The Queen most of all.”

“Miss _me_ , did she? No,” Tyrion smiled shrewdly. “With Ser Jorah so attentive to her?”

“It is the Queen’s hope, my lord, that _you_ will be able to dissuade Ser Jorah the Andal from joining the King in the North on his expedition beyond the Wall,” Missandei said, and Tyrion blinked. “For he is quite resistant to her pleas to stay by her side.”

“Ser Jorah wants to go North?” Tyrion blurted, then pulled a face. For all his knighthood and fluency in Dothraki and bastard Valyrian, _Ser_ Jorah was no Andal: He was of the North, born to an ancient family descended from the First Men. _He wants to go home_ , Tyrion thought. Winter had come; he wondered when Ser Jorah had last seen snow, for there was certainly none in Vaes Dothrak, nor settling on the Great Pyramids of Meereen.

“As the Queen’s representative during this expedition, my lord,” Missandei nodded. “Obara Sand shall accompany the King as representative of Dorne.”

“And when shall this expedition be under way?” Tyrion asked.

“As soon as the King’s ships are outfitted, my lord,” said Missandei.

“I would speak with the King before he departs on his great expedition, on a matter of some urgency,” Tyrion said. Little Neva had reminded him - watching Gendry with his adopted daughter had reminded him. It was easy to forget them, the little lion-cubs, somewhere in the bowels of this monstrous fortress. They were out of sight, and therefore, sadly, out of his mind. Until sweet Neva, Tyrion had scarcely spared a thought for the little Lannisters, and that filled him with a sense of shame - and reminded him of their precarious position, and his duty to them. Yes, things had gone wrong in King’s Landing for him, when he tried to take care of too many who did not deserve or appreciate it - but it was not wrong that he had; only foolish for him to become so emotionally invested in earning their appreciation, their love, their respect.

“Might I ask, Lord Lannister,” said Missandei, and it shocked Tyrion to hear her address him that way. Lord Lannister was his lord father Tywin, and let no-one forget it. “Where is Lord Varys?”

“Doing what he does best,” said Tyrion with gusto, as he waddled down the hall. _The big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling…_

Yes, Varys was doing what he did best, and Tyrion only had to keep up with him - and ensure the little fishes weren’t roasted alive by a dragon.

* * *

“Why don’t we settle the children in the nursery with the others?” Jon said, glancing at little Neva and Rhysand, who was eyeing the White Wolf, the King in the North, with wariness and a quiet sort of respect. “They’ll be more comfortable there, while we talk.”

“How are the girls?” Ser Davos asked. He winked at Neva. “The little lady Neva helped me pick out a little treat for each of them, didn’t you?”

“They’re settling in,” Jon said heavily, shaking his head. “Though they’ll carry that horror for the rest of their lives.”

“Which children…er, Your Grace?”

“You don’t have to call me that,” said Jon, looking uncomfortable. He sighed. “The Lannister girls. They’ve had their innocence burned away. Some of them weep; some of them rage and run feral. The others are quiet, and just seem to be getting on with things. They squabble, like any family.”

They reached the nursery, which had become prettier since the Queen’s people had decorated it, outfitting it with chirping exotic birds, fine cushions and toys from far away. Ser Davos had told Lady Tisseia where the Princess Shireen’s chamber had been located, and within it her collection of books and carved animals and her miniature castle where tiny dolls lived cheerfully drinking tea and reading before the hearth most days. The castle featured a carved stag and a fine doe and several little fawns on the approach; Ser Davos had carved the great stag for the Princess while in the North, to replace the one she had left here on Dragonstone, and his mind was on that blackened, broken stag as he entered the nursery with Jon, Gendry and his two adopted children.

A fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and though there were handsome carved chairs and large, stuffed cushions on the floor with fine carpets and rugs and furs to lounge upon, none of the children went near it. Crisantha sat beneath a window, an embroidery hoop in her lap, her hands limp as she raised her face unseeingly at the sound of their entry; her amber eyes dripped with silent tears, as they had since they arrived. Tiny Leona was humming and sucking her thumb, somehow managing to chatter happily around it, her eyes vibrant with delight as she and Rosamund with her sweet rounded cheeks and plump lips played with the doll-castle.

There was _music_ playing, and shards of light danced over the golden curls of quiet Altheda, whose dainty fingers danced lovingly across the polished black keys of a _pianoforte_ , a new invention all the way from Lys, made of a beautiful golden wood polished to a high shine, with curlicues and stylised lions engraved and painted in gold among bouquets of flowers in vibrant Myrish colours on the lid, which was propped up and open to show the strings and dozens of tiny hammers, jigging away happily to create a beautiful melody.

Altheda played very prettily, but not nearly loudly enough to conceal the sound of quarrelling voices. The eldest, Narcisa, her long hair gleaming and magnificent, and the bold girl Calanthe, were almost nose-to-nose and snarling at each other, and for a moment, eight-year-old Calanthe seemed the taller and more terrifying of the two. She had her little fist curled around the hilt of a gilded dagger, and Lady Tisseia stood with her around a pink-cheeked Delphine’s shoulders as she sniffled, the lady with her tattooed face trying valiantly to settle whatever dispute had cropped up.

There was nowhere in the Seven Kingdoms more fractious or prone to civil wars than the nursery. Jon could remember the squabbles amongst his own siblings - and yet they would be forgotten within the hour, playing together fiercely, every hurt forgotten, as they made up a new game, or clustered around Old Nan eagerly for another story.

“What’s all this?” Jon asked, sighing, and the girls glanced up. Calanthe tried to hide the dagger behind her skirts, but her delicate face was a mask of guilt. Lord Tyrion waddled up beside Jon, still holding a wine-skin, likely seeking his companion, and he glanced around the room and grimaced up at Jon as they lingered. Jon raised an eyebrow at Calanthe, who relented; Narcisa seemed to deflate, flustered and abashed by the arrival of Jon, her eyes lingering with curious appreciation on Gendry before drifting to Lord Tyrion, and she stood a little straighter, pushing her shoulders back and her chin level to the floor - a superbly elegant posture, _mature_. In front of the adults she respected, she wished to be seen as a young lady, and Jon knew it: She was very like the girl he remembered Sansa being at the same age. Eager to please and devoted to the idea of being a _lady_. Jon sighed, and glanced down at Lord Tyrion.

“My father used to say war was easier than daughters,” he said grimly, and Tyrion’s beard twitch.

“What’s going on here?” Lord Tyrion asked, peering around at the little faces.

“They’ve been squabbling again. Calanthe trying to trim Delphine’s hair - without asking,” Lady Tisseia said patiently, giving the younger girl a chiding look as Jon strode over, and reached for the stiletto blade held by Calanthe. The little lioness’ gaze was unyielding, as Jon sighed and sat down on one of the nearby chairs.

“Where did you get this?” Jon asked curiously. It was a Braavosi stiletto blade, the handle of golden wood inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, the small pommel a lion’s head with a great mane. Calanthe raised her dainty little chin. She was the middle girl, and more delicate than Narcisa’s magnificent beauty, yet she was stubborn, and her personality was fierce. That was why they clashed, Tisseia had mused often, and Jon couldn’t help but agree. Calanthe was a force of nature; and haughty, shy, sweet Narcisa thought herself leader of their little family as the eldest. She led Crisantha and Delphine, a trio of incomparable beauties; while Calanthe dominated the babies, ferocious about protecting them. In the absence of Lords Tyrion and Varys and Ser Davos, Jon had spent a good bit of time with Lady Tisseia at court, and she spent most of her time with the girls: Tisseia was sensible and approachable, and Jon found that he liked her company.

“It was my father’s,” Calanthe said, a challenge in her gaze as she raised her emerald-green eyes to Jon’s. Jon realised she must have taken it from the trunks full of their families’ belongings, which had been returned to them.

“Do you know the first thing about wielding a weapon?” Jon asked, and Calanthe drifted nearer. She raised her chin, her delicately beautiful features stubborn.

“Of course I do! You use the _pointy_ end!” she responded with great asperity, and for a second, Jon stared, and then he _grinned_. The others saw it; they heard his gruff laugh.

“Aye, that’s the essence of it,” he agreed with a sigh, turning the blade over in his hand. “And who were you planning to pierce full of holes with this? Narcisa?”

“No.” Calanthe scowled, and Jon exchanged a quick glance with Lord Tyrion when Calanthe declared, “The Queen.”

Jon sighed, and held out his hand to her; she took it, and gently, he drew her closer, until she was curled up at his side, his arm loosely around her waist holding her close. The King’s expression was open and earnest, and _anxious_.

“I understand how you feel…but you’re smarter than to let anger and vengeance consume you,” Jon said softly. “Those Unsullied were ready to skewer you when you attacked the Queen, and for what?”

“It was my mother’s necklace,” Calanthe said, wildfire burning in her eyes.

“And I’ll bet she couldn’t care less about a necklace - but the thought of _you_ at the end of an Unsullied spear?” Jon said, a muscle in his jaw ticking. He exhaled heavily, shaking his head. “I’m not going to lie to you…and I know there’s no frightening you more than you already are - “

“I am _not_ frightened.”

“Yes, you are. You’re terrified, and that makes you furious,” Jon said succinctly, and Calanthe scowled at him. Jon nodded, for the little girl could not deny it. It was her fear that fuelled her rage. She was a seething ball of vengeful wrath wrapped inside a little girl’s vulnerable body. “Fear makes you quick - but _anger_ , that makes you stupid. Stupid gets you killed.” Calanthe’s eyelashes fluttered, and he knew his words had struck home with the girl, for her shoulders loosened and her expression became softer. Jon sighed. “You and your cousins are in a dangerous position. You cannot fight amongst yourselves.” He reached up to stroke the hair out of her face, which had fallen out of its dainty twists, and for a moment, it was Arya with her sloppy braids and tough linen dress and dirt on her chin from wrestling with Brandon in the training yard for telling her to go back to her needlework. “Do you know the Stark words?”

Calanthe nodded, and said fiercely, “ _Winter is coming_.”

“Well, winter has finally come,” Jon said grimly. “In winter, we must protect ourselves, look after one another…that means no more trying to cut your cousins’ hair - or they’ll make ribbons of _you_.”

“I wouldn’t _really_ have done it,” Calanthe sighed, glancing across the chamber at her cousin, who was stood beside Ser Davos, with the little silver-haired girl beside him, divvying out hair-ribbons. “I’m not _jealous_ of Delphine’s hair like they said. But _my_ hair is my _one_ beauty…Delphine has lots.”

“You think your hair and your looks make you beautiful?” Jon shook his head slowly, holding Calanthe’s gaze. “You could be the most radiant beauty in the world, and have the sourest, _ugliest_ heart. Yours is fierce and righteous and good. That goodness will shine from your face all your life, and you will always be beautiful.”

“Oh, then…” Calanthe said, mollified and secretly pleased. She searched Jon’s face, and sighed, her shoulders falling a little. “I should apologise to Delphine.”

“I think so… Calanthe…” Jon said softly, handing back the stiletto blade. In a quiet murmur, he told her, “Never let anyone _know_ you want them dead, not ‘til your blade’s tucked safe between their ribs.” He took her hand, and curled it around the hilt of the dagger. “This is how you hold it, so you don’t end up hurting yourself.”

Little Neva approached them, at some encouragement from Ser Davos, a length of crimson velvet ribbon coiled in her palm. She offered it shyly to Calanthe, who blinked, smiled in delighted surprise, and accepted the gift. Neva gave Jon a bashful smile, and darted back to her new friend Ser Davos, who was sat before the hearth with each of the girls fiddling with their new ribbons, fussing over which girl should have their hair braided first.

“What are you doing?” Calanthe asked, as Jon took the crimson velvet ribbon from Calanthe. He adjusted her grip on the stiletto blade, now sheathed, and wound the ribbon around and around her hand so that the blade was tied to her hand.

“Carry it until it feels unnatural to be without it,” Jon said, and Calanthe frowned, shaking her hand as if trying to loosen her grip on the dagger; the ribbons held firm, and Calanthe gave Jon a curious look.

“You’re letting me keep it?”

“If you’re determined to carry it, you should know how to use it properly so you don’t hurt yourself,” Jon said, thinking of Sansa, who had balked when he had presented her with the dagger she now wore concealed beneath her skirts, but had taken it because it reassured him that she had some last, desperate defence.

“That should reduce the trouble she can make by half,” Lord Tyrion remarked, appearing at Jon’s side as the little girl wandered off, almost shyly approaching lovely Delphine.

“Don’t you believe it!” Jon scoffed. “I could tell you stories about Arya and Larra and the mischief they got up to…”

His eyes flicked to Gendry, who was sat before the hearth, frowning in consternation as he tried to follow Narcisa, beautifully braiding Delphine’s long hair. Neva sat, her face absolutely radiant with the purest delight, cradling a plum velvet ribbon in her hands as if it was the most precious jewel in the world. To her, it was: She had never owned anything so dainty.

Lord Tyrion settled on a chair beside Jon.

“Arya Stark,” Tyrion muttered, and Jon glanced away from Gendry, who was brushing Neva’s hair to section it into a simple braid, some of the Lannister girls clustering around to lend their support. It did not escape Jon that Gendry was incredibly handsome. Neva sat before him on a little footstool, sucking her thumb and smiling shyly as tiny Leona toddled over to share her dollies, which she thrust at Ser Davos for kisses. He took them and cradled them and asked them if they had missed him. “When I was Hand of the King, I had Varys’ little birds seeking out even the faintest whisper of her whereabouts. Nothing…”

“I’d be very interested to hear what he has to say about her,” Jon said, watching the concentration on Gendry’s face as he tenderly braided Neva’s long shimmering hair.

“You’ve spent some time with these girls?” Jon asked.

“A little. The Tyrell girls are usually in here, too, with their septas and maids,” Jon said. “They like to invite me to have tea with them. I enjoy talking with Lady Tisseia.”

“Wonderful, isn’t she?” Lord Tyrion observed fondly, gazing at the tattooed girl with her glittering Volantene robes and sensible dark eyes. “Jon… I would ask you to foster the girls at Winterfell.”

It took a second to register; then Jon Snow turned to Tyrion, his eyebrows raised in quiet alarm.

“You know why I came here? Why I’m mining obsidian? Why I’ve united Free Folk with Northmen for the first time since the Wall went up? Winterfell’s about to become the _least_ -safe place in the world, and you want to send innocent girls there?” Jon blurted, his tone exasperated but no longer surprised by Tyrion’s disbelief. “Why?!”

Tyrion frowned at him, as if willing him to understand through the look alone. “ _Jon_. Just how _safe_ do you imagine the girls are here? As long as they are young, unmarried, with no friends and no armies, they are _utterly_ vulnerable. If they survive Daenerys, you can _bet_ Cersei will find a way to get to them, if only to prove that Daenerys is incapable of protecting the innocents she has deigned to spare,” Lord Tyrion said, his voice shrewd and stern, unyielding. “They are worthless to Cersei, except as a tool _against_ Daenerys. _Jon_ …” He repeated, gazing urgently at the King in the North. “They _cannot_ stay here. Even if Daenerys refuses to allow them to be mistreated, to be imprisoned, or given to her bloodriders…they have no family, no mothers, they have no _place_. They are little girls. What use are they beyond ornaments in the Queen’s court - a reminder of her people’s loss of faith in her decisions? As they grow older and more beautiful and more beloved, sought after by those who wish to marry them for their lands and loyalties, she will come to resent them… I have seen it before. With your sister.”

Jon sighed heavily. “I know.”

Tyrion sniffed, and told him, “I will pay the Northern kingdom for the privilege of taking the girls on as wards of Winterfell.”

“Lord Tyrion, that’s not -“

“Jon. Gold from the Rock, and food from the Reach,” Tyrion said firmly. “You will need _both_ to survive the winter, even after you survive this battle you prepare for with such single-minded purpose. It is foretold to be the worst winter in a century.”

“Aye, and I know what it brings. Lord Tyrion -”

“ _Please_ ,” Tyrion begged. “They are the last of my family…and _innocent_ … And they will have no lives worth living if they stay here. They will be lost. I would send the girls to Sansa. I trust Sansa, and _you_ , to _raise_ the girls, to educate them, and embrace them, not just endure them, punish them for their very presence… I trust Sansa to be far kinder to them than my sister ever was to her…”

“That’s not saying much…” said Jon darkly. He sighed, gazing across the room at the girls, now clustered around Ser Davos and Gendry as he knotted the plum velvet ribbon at the end of Neva’s simple braid. Rhysand was stretched out along the hearth, hands clasped loosely over his belly as he dozed, his head resting on an embroidered cushion. He seemed to be asleep, but the glow of the fire betrayed him in the glitter of his narrowed eyes, as he gazed through his lashes at Narcisa with a furious, annoyed sort of longing. “They’re already frightened, you think sending them to Winterfell is going to help?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve _seen_ the way you are with them,” Tyrion said. Even before he had left for King’s Landing, Tyrion had _seen_ it with his own eyes, the concern Jon had for the girls, the time he devoted to them, the thought that he put toward their happiness and their protection. “They’re frightened of me, but they respect and admire you. And you are gentle with them, and stern. With you…they know exactly where they stand. That fills me with confidence about how they will be treated at Winterfell, and the kind of people they may yet have the chance to grow up to be… Please, Jon…I would not have them _lost_ , as your sister Arya was lost…”

But she wasn’t, Jon learned later. Arya hadn’t been lost. She had been hiding in plain sight.

But his heart broke, listening to Gendry’s stories, the truth of Arya’s fate when they had arrested Father and executed him. He was grateful beyond belief to the wandering crow Yoren, who had recognised and protected her, out of fierce loyalty undoubtedly to his black brother, Benjen. He was horrified, and grief-stricken, that Arya had witnessed torture and worse as captive at Harrenhall. Devastated, that the last time Gendry had seen her was several years ago; there was no accounting for what had happened to her since.

“I know two things for certain. The only person who needs protecting is the one who gets in Arya’s way,” said Gendry firmly, as he refilled Jon’s cup with strong beer. “And if Arya thought I knew you were about to do something as brave and stupid as heading beyond the Wall to capture a dead man, and didn’t go with you to protect you, she’d murder me. Ser Davos told me where you’re going, and why: I’m coming with you.”

“Er…”

“I’m not a trained soldier, I know,” Gendry said, brushing aside Jon’s misgivings. “But I’m good in a fight and _strong_. When your father came to my shop all those years ago, he said if I ever wanted to learn to wield a sword instead of making them, I should go to him. If I come with you, I want Rhysand and Neva to go to Winterfell. Rhys has been my apprentice in the armoury, he’ll work hard in the forge; and Neva’s quiet and gentle and would make a good lady’s maid with some training. I’m not asking for a future for myself; Ser Davos gave me that years ago. I’m asking you to give _them_ a future.”

“Most people I tell don’t believe what’s coming,” Jon said, sighing.

“Ser Davos believes you; Arya would believe you - so I believe you,” Gendry said simply.

“And you’d risk your children by sending them where it’s the most dangerous?”

Gendry frowned heavily, saying, “Winter has come; it’ll be a fight for our survival _anywhere_.”

Jon sighed heavily, and at length, he nodded. He _agreed_. “The Lannister girls are going North too. They’re to be wards of Winterfell, until the war in the south is over.”

“The Queens’ war?” Gendry frowned, and Jon nodded.

“The North is staying out of it,” Jon said. “Lord Tyrion wants the girls at Winterfell for _their_ protection. It’s the most dangerous place in the world…”

“Maybe he thinks, the closer they are to danger, the farther they are from true harm,” Gendry suggested thoughtfully, and Jon shrugged. “Ser Davos says the two Queens will tear Westeros apart to snatch whatever’s left from each other’s claws. I’ve no love for Lannisters but those girls are innocent; it’s good they’ll be tucked safe out of the reach of either of the queens.”

“I wish I could make people understand…” He sighed, shaking his head.

“That’s why we’re going beyond the Wall, isn’t it?” Gendry prompted. “To _show_ people what they should actually be afraid of, so they stop acting like spoiled children?”

“Aye,” Jon nodded.

He thought of Cersei. Jon thought of Daenerys.

After what he had done, allowing wildings beyond the Wall for the first time since the black brothers began their long vigil, could Jon just sit back and watch as innocent children were left vulnerable to cruelty when he could ensure it did not happen?

Were the girls truly any safer at Winterfell, with an invasion imminent, than they would be at Dragonstone, with an invasion imminent?

The armies of the dead could only kill them.

The armies of the living historically did far worse to beautiful, defenceless little girls like them.

It was in Jon’s power to ensure that was not the fate of the last Lannisters.

It was because of his sisters that Jon had agreed, not because of Lord Tyrion’s offers of gold and food to pay for the privilege of taking the girls on as wards of Winterfell.

He sat at his desk, his gaze flicking mournfully to his empty bed where once Nora had coaxed him so sweetly to join her, and started writing a letter to Sansa. It had to be done: She needed to be informed one way or another about the truth of the armistice being organised. He regretted she would learn about this expedition by letter, but, as he explained, he could not waste the time. He had to be North beyond the Wall and back south again as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, Lord Tyrion prepared his kin for their journey. Jon did not concern himself with the politics of whether or not the Queen would _allow_ Jon to take the Lannisters, her hostages, as his wards, or if Lord Tyrion had even asked her permission. He just organised things as if it was already set in stone that the girls were going North.

Kneading his tired eyes, he heard a soft knock on the door, a guard telling him, “Lady Missandei, Your Grace.”

“Show her in,” Jon called, setting down his quill and standing from his desk. The pretty Summer Islander, the Queen’s most trusted advisor but for Ser Jorah, entered the room, but she was not alone; several servants carried crates of books and scrolls.

“Lady Missandei,” he said, aware how exhausted his voice sounded. “How can I help you?”

“Your Grace, I have spent many weeks exploring the texts and scrolls in the library,” Missandei said softly. “There are some of the rarest manuscripts in the world here, and most are written in High Valyrian. At my Queen’s behest, I have been searching the ancient writings for mention of obsidian and of White Walkers.”

Jon glanced at the small crates, five of them, filled with books and scrolls and parchment manuscripts, clasped and illuminated. “You found something?”

“Quite a lot, I am delighted to say,” Missandei said softly. “The writings on the White Walkers are…ancient and… _obscure_ , even for High Valyrian odes, and had I not heard of your experiences beyond the Wall I would have discounted them as fanciful myth, embellished by the authors. The Valyrians of old were renowned for aggrandising their sagas. My Queen would bequeath these ancient writings to you; I supervised a team of scholars who have translated them into the common tongue for ease - though the beauty of the prose is somewhat damaged in the change.”

“This…this is more than I could have asked for,” Jon said, gazing at her and rushing out an earnest, “ _Thank you_.”

“It was my pleasure, Your Grace, truly… There is one particular manuscript which I believe may be of particular importance to you,” Lady Missandei said, and she gestured to a servant, who carried forward a large, old wooden box. He set it on Jon’s desk, opened the creaking lid, and unfolded swathes of velvet, samite, sealskin and thick waxed parchment. The manuscript he lifted out - wearing gloves of softest kid - was bound with weirwood, banded by bronze, the cover carved…with a White Walker…and one of the First Men, a spear in his hand, a direwolf snarling at his side. “It is not written in High Valyrian, Your Grace, though a translation was found with it, a sister, made in likeness of the first. The original, to the best of my knowledge, is written in the runes of the First Men. It lays out the legend of the Long Night, and the war for the dawn fought between two brothers.”

“Two brothers?” Jon breathed, stunned, as the servant carefully unclasped the manuscript.

“One, taken captive by the Children of the Forest and created as a weapon by them with harrowing magics, and his brother, who united the First Men to stop him when the Children’s hold over him failed,” Missandei said softly, her gaze uncertain as she glanced at Jon. “This manuscript…is thousands of years older than the Valyrian Freehold, even. Generations have maintained its integrity - there is a record of it. The manuscript belonged at Winterfell, Your Grace, for many thousands of years. There is a note written in it, preserved with wax, from a Lady Alarra Stark, daughter of Lord Alaric Stark, Warden of the North, who gifted the manuscript to Queen Alysanne. She was very well-read, and had enjoyed the rich culture of stories and legends of the North during her progress through the Northern kingdom.”

Jon’s heart seized at the name. Alarra. _Larra_ , his heart moaned sorrowfully.

His breath gusted out. It was a point of pride that Good Queen Alysanne had journeyed throughout the North, hosting her women’s courts and strengthening support for the Night’s Watch. She had been coldly received at Winterfell, the stories claimed, but even Lord Alaric had not been strong enough to withstand the Queen’s charms.

“I have also had a translation written,” Lady Missandei said softly, her smile gentle. “Though we have not had the time to turn it into a manuscript of such superior quality as these.”

“Thank you,” Jon wheezed, disbelieving, as Lady Missandei produced a stack of _gatherings_ \- Jon knew the word because Maester Luwin had taught Larra how to make manuscripts from treating the skins to make parchment to painting illuminations and decorating the covers and bindings - a collection of parchment pages sewn together with thick linen thread. The handwriting was clear and elegant, written in the common tongue.

“Your Grace…when you became King in the North…did you swear an oath?”

“Aye,” Jon said, nodding. He had exchanged one vow for another, the Night’s Watch for the entirety of the North and all who lived there.

“Might I ask, what was it?” Missandei asked curiously.

“‘ _Winter is coming, and so begins my reign. I shall defend my realm and all those who live within it. I shall fight for their freedom, never for mine own glory. I shall live and die for the good of the North. At Winterfell the fire burns against the cold, and the light brings the dawn. It is my blood that wakes the sleepers. Mine shall be the sword in the darkness. I am the shield that guards this Realm of Men. I pledge my loyalty to the North. In my life and death I pledge to fight for Winterfell and the North, for winter is coming. Winter is coming_ ’,” he recited grimly. Missandei’s dark eyes glimmered, and she gazed at him.

“The first Oath,” she said softly.

“Pardon?”

“That oath, Your Grace…it is recorded in the manuscript as the First Oath. The oath sworn by Bracken the Stark…his son Brandon became the Builder who united the First Men with the Children and drove the Others away… The oath every King of Winter has sworn for thousands of generations…and you,” Missandei said softly. “The oath Bracken swore…to defend the North even in death, to stop his brother whom he had lost, even if it meant plunging a knife through his heart by his own hand.”

Jon stared at the translator. Her face - which seemed tired, to Jon - was alight with the fascination of legends recorded in a dying language.

“Show me,” he breathed, and for a little while, Jon and Missandei pored over the translated text. Jon had never heard the story; it had never been one that Old Nan had ever told them.

The Night King…was a _Stark_. The war for the dawn was a battle between _brothers_ , one twisted and warped into an unrecognisable _thing_ devoted to one cause - the destruction of every living creature. He had been mis-created by the Children, so said the ancient manuscript, their captive, and their weapon. But he had turned on them, too, until the Children and the First Men had had no choice but to unite, if they had any chance of surviving.

The manuscript said that ancient magic wielded by the Children and the First Men, combined, had been enough to beat the Others back, long enough to raise the Wall, beyond which the Others had slumbered for thousands of years, waiting…

Jon read the First Oath, a chill going down his spine, but he didn’t focus on that. What drew him back were the words Bracken had sworn: To stop the Others, even if it meant plunging a knife through his brother’s heart…

“Thank you for this, Missandei,” Jon said softly. “Truly. It…is a priceless relic.”

“It belongs at Winterfell,” Missandei said softly. She hesitated. “You spent many years away from your home, Your Grace?”

“I did.”

“And…did you think of it often?”

“Always,” Jon said, with a soft, gruff, tired laugh. He glanced at Missandei, who looked drawn and suddenly pale. “Missandei? Are you ill? Sit down.” He pulled his chair out for her, settling her down. “Shall I get you something to eat, or hot tea?”

“I… I am quite well, thank you, Your Grace,” Missandei said shakily.

“You’re not,” Jon frowned. Missandei glanced around the chamber almost desperately. Her dark eyes settled on Jon.

“I…have not been sleeping well, Your Grace. It is how I found the manuscript; I have been…retreating to the library at all hours, because I can find no rest…the words drown it out,” Missandei said hoarsely.

Jon frowned, and gently asked, “Drown what out, my lady?”

“Screaming… I remember… I remember, screaming for my mother, as they carried me away,” Missandei said shakily, her eyes gleaming and faraway.

Missandei stared at the King in the North, whose dark eyes flickered with concern, his grim, bearded face full of empathy. He sighed heavily, and nodded. “When they took you from Naath.”

“Everything was burning,” Missandei whispered, staring in remembered horror at Jon, though in her mind she was far away, white shores growing smaller, great palm-trees catching alight as the island choked on black smoke, the screams of the dying carrying on the gentle air with the smell of flowers, great flocks of colourful birds exploding into the skies, the waves frothing with the blood of the dead cast overboard, and the hand that clamped on her shoulder, nails biting into her skin, and the vicious smile leering down at her as a collar was clamped around her throat.

The Lion Culling was the first time Missandei had thought about that day in a very long time: What came after was truly more horrifying.

She had watched the pale girls with their golden hair sobbing and crying for their mothers as they were manhandled into a wheelhouse, locked away, heard their whimpers and saw the fear in their eyes as they watched the bloodriders, and the flames, and Missandei…could not forget her own enslavement.

She could not shake the unsettling feeling…that what Queen Daenerys had done…was wrong, that it put her on the same level as those who had stolen Missandei from the glittering white beaches of Naath, stripping her of her freedoms and her innocence, all that she was and all that she ever could be.

Missandei sniffed, wiping her eyes, as the King in the North looked on grimly. He did not ask her to explain, and Missandei offered nothing else: He didn’t seem to _need_ to ask, he read it in her face, in her tears.

She had not cried about her enslavement since that first sea-voyage: She was almost shocked to be weeping now, for seven little golden girls whose names she barely knew.

“The Lord Hand has made arrangements for the Ladies of Lannister to live as wards at Winterfell,” Missandei sniffed delicately, and the King nodded solemnly, though a tiny line appeared between his brows as his eyes seemed to pinch in distrust - or at least, wariness. “I am glad they will be safe under your care, Your Grace.”

* * *

The hard part was not in getting the Lannister girls onto a Northern ship.

It was Gendry’s adopted children. Specifically, getting Neva to stop clinging to Gendry’s leg long enough for Lady Tisseia or Zharanni, both of whom were accompanying them North, to coax her onto the ship, and Rhysand, who was stubborn as an aurochs and seemed to grow as large as his adopted father in his anger at the threat of their separation.

“We’re a family!” Rhysand raged. “A _family_. We’re supposed to stay _together_.”

“We _are_ a family. We will _always_ be a family,” Gendry asserted, his voice deep and solemn and fierce. His blue eyes glowed; he looked ferocious, and those who watched pretended not to see the tears glinting in Rhysand’s eyes as he glared at his father. “It’s my job to keep you safe; and safe is where the Starks will keep you. At Winterfell.”

“We need good men like you,” Jon said, and Ser Davos smiled warmly in approval, as Jon said, “to look after the girls. They’re deathly frightened and have no menfolk to protect them but the Queen’s men.” In her beneficence, the Queen had granted each of the seven Lannister girls a bloodrider sworn to their protection, to ride down any who tried to harm them, and an Unsullied soldier - to cut down any of the bloodriders who might be tempted to abuse their positions.

Rhysand sighed heavily, glaring at the Lannister girls - specifically Narcisa, though his eyes lingered a second too long, and he rolled his eyes, scoffing, when she caught him staring and blushed, frowning - then turned his vivid pale-blue eyes on Jon. “What about Gendry? Who’s going to look after _him_?”

“I will,” Jon promised him. “The two of us, we’ll return to Winterfell. I’ve my sister to return to; Gendry has you two to fight for. You’ll not be parted long. I give you my word.”

Rhysand scowled. “You can’t promise that. Your family was ripped apart, _everyone_ in the Seven Kingdoms knows it - _and_ in Essos too!”

“Aye. It was. If you trust nothing else, believe that I will do all I can, with all the strength I have in my body, to make sure Gendry survives this expedition,” Jon said quietly, leaning down to meet Rhysand’s eyes. “I have no desire to lose any more brothers.”

Rhysand sighed heavily, still scowling.

“I’ve another task for you, not just looking after the girls…I’ve a letter that must reach my sister, Lady Stark. She won’t be happy to read it, but it must reach her,” Jon said, and he produced the thick letter he had spent hours wording and rewording in his head before he could write a single sentence, too anxious about what Sansa would read, and how she, specifically, would read between the lines, interpreting what he left unsaid.

All he wanted was to go home and just _talk_ with her, relaxing in the carved settle while she sewed, and he rested his tired eyes. Sometimes she’d accidentally rouse him from his doze, spreading a fur over him; he was a light sleeper, but he always appreciated the thoughtfulness of the gesture, and they’d usually cuddle up under the furs when that happened, luxuriating in their time together, in their home.

That was all he wanted. He didn’t want to be going beyond the Wall, for the sake of two spoiled queens who needed to be shocked out of their conceit.

He was so tired of fighting.

Jon just wanted to _rest_.

“How will I know who she is to give it to her?” Rhysand frowned. “Never seen no Sansa Stark.”

“You’ll know her. She’s tall and beautiful, with hair kissed by fire,” Jon said. “And she’ll probably terrify you.”

“I’m not scared of _girls_ ,” Rhysand scoffed.

“Well, she scares me,” Jon said, and Ser Davos chuckled, his beard twitching, at the look on Rhysand’s face. As if it was incomprehensible that a hard Northern warrior who was becoming a legend even as far south as King’s Landing was afraid of his _sister_.

“She’s not going to throw me in a dungeon for what’s written in the letter, is she?” Rhysand asked shrewdly.

Jon chuckled. “No. She may put you in the forge, and you’ll spar daily in the training-yard with all the other boys.”

“Learn to fight?”

“Spears, shields, bows, knives -“

“I know how to use a knife,” Rhysand said dismissively, and though Jon could not see one on the boy did not mean he was not armed.

“I hope you reach Winterfell without having to use one,” Jon said earnestly.

It was Rhysand who peeled Neva off Gendry, kissing and cooing to her as she silently wept, her eyes utterly accusing, devastated - she believed Gendry was giving her away. Gendry kissed her and murmured reassurances, but it was Lady Tisseia who took the little girl into her arms with a cheerful smile, coaxing Neva to wave to Gendry, and speaking bastard Valyrian to her.

As _Winter_ navigated its way out of the harbour, Gendry sighed heavily, his face tortured, his shoulders slumping. He ran his hands through his curly black hair in evident frustration, as guilt warred across his face.

An hour later, they followed _Winter_ ’s course aboard _Storm Crow_ , the last of the three vessels bound to the Night’s Watch, and the hardiest. They were headed north, finally, and Jon felt _freedom_ as the island of Dragonstone disappeared on the horizon, as if he could breathe again.

They headed ever northward, until the choppy waves gave way to angry black seas and skies heavy with sleet-rain that punished anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck above-deck. It was miserable: It was also the most relieved Jon had felt in months - his time spent with Nora the exception to the rule, his general agitation and barely-leashed frustration and anger toward the Dragon Queen.

They spent the journey discussing the Night King’s armies, the threat to all of Westeros - and the danger they were headed into, a last, desperate move.

Gendry said it simplest, and said it best: “All this for two spoiled queens.”


	30. The True North

**Valyrian Steel**

_30_

_The True North_

_“_

* * *

_On the morning of my eighteenth name-day, my father came to me. ‘You're almost a man now,’ he said, ‘but you are not worthy of my land and title. Tomorrow you're going to take the black, forsake all claim to your inheritance, and start north… If you do not,’ he said, ‘then we'll have a hunt, and somewhere in these woods your horse will stumble, and you'll be thrown from your saddle to die… Or so I'll tell your mother… Nothing would please me more’…"_

It gave Jon some great pleasure to outfit the great Lord Randyll Tarly in wildling furs, to take away his fine sword - not the Valyrian-steel Heart’s Bane passed down through his family, but a plain steel sword, new-forged - and replace it with a rudimentary dagger and a spear both tipped with obsidian. Jon could _feel_ the hate emanating from Lord Tarly…but not so his younger son, Dickon, who stood as tall as Jon, grateful to still be alive, almost relieved to see the ramshackle Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, buried in snow and frozen solid against the very end of the Wall.

After their journey, brief though it had been - they had been blessed with fierce winds to fill their sails, and the worst of the storms had chased behind them - Jon was very relieved to disembark at Eastwatch. He had never been to the eastern-most fortress held by the Watch: He knew they had as much trouble, if not more, from slavers from Essos than wildlings, with whom they traded, along with Ibbenese whaling vessels and Skagosi. Anything to survive, Jon thought, sighing with relief as his boots hit the pebbly beach. Snow fell, but it was gentle, almost as if welcoming him back, and the snow did not stick to the shoreline as angry waves crashed in.

“There’s a light up ahead,” said Gendry thoughtfully, as he strapped his two great war-hammers to him, and Jon frowned, turning toward the fortress, where indeed, a rich orange glow was emanating from one of the windows that had, seconds ago, been shuttered against the elements.

“Someone has a fire going,” Jon said gratefully. He cast an eye over his companions, those men - and women - who had volunteered to join him. Ser Jorah wore his bear-adorned armour beneath a heavy fur-trimmed cloak, tucking a shield over his back. Obara Sand permanently had her double-ended spear in her hands; the blades had been removed, crafted into twin daggers with obsidian spikes set into the pommels, by Gendry, who had tempered new obisidian blades for her spear: After Lord Tyrion had managed to analyse and write out in plain speech the flowery High Valyrian instructions on tempering obsidian, which Missandei had found in the archives, Gendry had taken to the forge in Dragonstone, and spent days in there, working with obsidian. Gendry had left his sword on-board the ship, the weapon he was least-skilled with: He carried his enormous war-hammer, which even Dickon Tarly could not lift, and the second he had forged at Dragonstone, its dark brother, made of steel and bronze and obsidian. He carried both strapped in a leather harness.

It was one thing to know Gendry was a trained blacksmith and armourer: It was another thing to see him adapt and improvise his training to an unfamiliar material, crafting weapons of superior quality in mere days.

His craftsmanship had earned Gendry a good deal of respect from the likes of Obara, wrapped up in leathers beneath her furs, and Lord Barahir and two of his men: Lord Barahir wielded twin gladius swords, and his men each carried an obsidian falchion and a brutal scythe-like blade attached to a steel chain. Gendry had even managed to forge brass knuckles - with spikes made entirely of obsidian. One of Lord Barahir’s men was notorious for being hands-on, lusting for a good brawl.

Ser Davos and the Tarlys made up the rest of their party, and the spiteful look on Lord Randyll Tarly’s face was enough to put a spring in Jon’s step as he pushed off along the rocky shoreline, approaching the fortress, wondering who he would find within. Cotter Pyke, the intimidating Ironborn commander of Eastwatch, had been with him at Hard Home: Cotter Pyke’s attitude toward the wildlings, and Jon’s leadership, had done an abrupt about-face since then.

“No-one to greet us?” Lord Tarly said querulously. He was a brutal, unpleasant man without humour, and a somewhat warped sense of his own honour. He was the only one to ever defeat Robert Baratheon in battle, and supported the Targaryens during the Rebellion.

He had his own reasons for not kneeling to Daenerys Targaryen, and Jon respected them. Just as Lord Tarly respected Jon for refusing to yield the North to her.

Not that Lord Tarly had _wanted_ to join Jon on his expedition: He had no choice. Lord Tarly had refused to kneel to Daenerys, and he refused to accept that Daenerys had the power to force him to take the black. No-one could force a free man to swear his vows, Jon had told him; and they were all in a unique position.

“If you were tucked up in the warm and dry, my lord, would _you_ leave the hearthside?” Jon asked, striding ahead. The others sounded happy to be off the ship; Jon certainly was. As they had weighed anchor, he had watched in gruesome fascination as a pod of weirwhales hunted narwhal, the sea churned red with their blood. He had never seen either, but knew what they were from the books at Winterfell. Weirwhales were monstrous, pure-white whales that feasted on other great beasts of the sea; and the narwhal was alleged to be a sea-cousin of the unicorn, on account of its single great horn. Weirwhales were sought after by Ibbenese whalers for their blubber which, when treated into oil, gave off brilliant light and was odourless when burned, a great benefit that afforded it a high price. Jon only hoped there were no Ibbenese whalers about foolish enough to try out the blubber on shore beyond the Wall, as was their habit if they were close enough to land when they hunted successfully - this, according to Cotter Pyke, who traded with the Ibbenese whalers, who brought him news from beyond the Wall.

Eastwatch wasn’t like Castle Black, Jon thought, and it gave a false impression of the Watch to those who had never visited the Wall to know that the great stone fortress was an exception, not the rule. Castle Black was falling down: Eastwatch had been built to endure. And yet it was just as poorly-manned as Castle Black - even more so, Jon thought, frowning, as they approached the castle. At Castle Black there was always the sound of men working and training, in all weathers. Eastwatch was eerily _still_ , but for that flickering golden light up ahead.

Jon unsheathed his sword.

“Your Grace?” Dickon Tarly frowned, as Jon edged toward the front gate, which stood open. He eyed the tracks on the ground, though the snows had settled and softened the markings. The fact that the snow lay undisturbed made him suspicious.

“There should be men training,” Jon murmured. “The snow is undisturbed…” His mind went to the worst possible scenario. Then he heard a soft neigh, and slipped into the yard, peering into the stables; horses bedded down with hay and oats and blankets.

Had the Wall been breached and the fortress attacked, there would have been nothing left alive. Yet the horses were content, cared for. Where were all the men?

“Fine beasts,” someone grunted, and Jon raised his eyes - to find an arrowhead aimed between them.

Then someone laughed, and Jon knew the sound. Long Claw slipped from his grip as someone collided with him, with enough force to knock him clean off his feet. Matted furs and fiery red hair, a wild grin.

“ _Tormund_!”

“Jon Snow!” he laughed, embracing Jon like a brother. Jon grinned and hugged back, then frowned at him. “We didn’t think to see you here.”

“Who’s we - and what’re you doing here?” Jon asked, slightly dazed. Tormund grinned his mad grin.

“We’re the Night’s Watch now,” he growled tauntingly, his eyes scanning the others behind Jon, Gendry scowling deeply, ready to take Tormund’s head clean off with his great war-hammer. Tormund saw him, saw Dickon Tarly with his falchion raised threateningly, looking uncertain, and grinned like the madman Jon knew him to be. Tormund laughed. “These boys have giant’s blood or I’m a maid.”

“Tormund, what’re you doing here? Where’s everyone else?” Jon asked.

“All the crows have flown down from the Wall, all your brothers, called to Winterfell,” Tormund said gruffly. “Best place to put up a real fight.”

“They’ve left the Wall unmanned?” Jon blurted, horror settling in. _Edd, you idiot!_ “And when the Night King’s army breaches the Wall?”

“The Three-Eyed Raven will know,” Tormund said solemnly. Jon stared at him. The ways of the wildlings were still foreign to Jon. A few months with them, years ago, spending most of his time trekking through the snow and wrestling inside Ygritte’s furs was one thing; he was not Mance Rayder, immersed in their culture for twenty years. Whatever the Three-Eyed Raven was, Jon had no idea; but it was obvious that Tormund respected it.

“Come, little crow, I’m freezing my balls off out here. Warmer by the fire. We’ve good stew, and songs. One of your brothers never shuts up. But he does sing so prettily,” Tormund said, his usual wry humour in full force. “Who are these people?”

“Tormund Giantsbane, this is Gendry, Obara Sand, Lord Barahir and his men Bors and Dagonet,” Jon said, introducing everyone, and Tormund embraced Ser Davos. “And Lord Dickon and Lord Randyll Tarly.”

“Tarly? Like your brother?” Tormund grunted, frowning, and Jon nodded.

“Aye, they’re Sam’s kin,” Jon said.

“This one looks like he’s trying to shit an anvil,” said Tormund, brandishing his short, brutal sword at Lord Tarly, and Jon’s mouth twitched. Tormund leered, striding toward Lord Tarly with that predatory swagger Jon knew so well. “Not for nothing, but the last time someone looked at me like that, we ended up married for three moons.” Jon scoffed, smirking, and he shook his head. “Come. Inside, where it’s warm. You can tell me why you’re here.” He grinned, gestured to Jon, and led the way to a rickety staircase. The wildling with the bow had already disappeared inside, and by the time they entered the small chamber, which was glowing from the fire filling the great hearth that spread warmth over them in waves, Tormund’s companions were roused and grinning.

Night’s Watchmen in their faded blacks and wildlings in their ragged furs, Jon saw; they shared the hearth, and the contents of the castle larders. He recognised a few faces - Karsi smiled at him, the firelight gleaming off the muscle-shells armouring her furs, and Long Tom from Castle Black. There were two tall, terrifying Thenn, Asa and Sigurd, who had survived Hard Home, and two other wildlings, Hvitserk and Hali. From the Watch, there was also Kenner, Greef and a tall, slender young man with a cheerful face named Yaskier.

“I see, so you’ve been feasting,” Jon said, his lips twitching toward a smile as he noted the foot being shared out - the barrel of mead that Tormund seemed to be sitting on.

“Just enjoying some well-earned comforts,” said Yaskier, handing bowls of stew to Lord Barahir and Obara. “We had the _worst_ journey atop the Wall.”

“Got here six days ago,” Tormund said gruffly, filling his drinking-horn, and grinning tauntingly at Lord Tarly, who accepted a bowl from Yaskier only grudgingly - and only because the young man wore the black. Obara sat beside Karsi, who openly admired her double-ended obsidian spear.

“Why are you here?”

“The Three-Eyed Raven sent us,” Tormund said, unhelpfully. “And you?”

Jon sighed heavily, accepted a bowl gratefully from Yaskier, whose face was alight with excitement, as if he was about to burst if he could not say something - he bit his lip, grinned, and ducked back to his own seat. Jon told them.

“Isn’t it your job to talk him out of stupid fucking ideas like this?” Tormund accused Ser Davos, who sighed grimly.

“Is it a mad idea? Aye. Is it the only chance we’ve got?” Ser Davos said, nodding fiercely. “I don’t like it, and I wish to the gods it could be done any other way, but it’s necessary.”

“How many queens are there in the south?” Tormund asked, scowling.

“Two,” Jon said.

“And you need to snatch a wight and show it to the Queen of the dragons, or the one who fucks her brother?” asked Karsi, making Dickon Tarly start, staring at her coarse language; Lord Tarly frowned, perhaps surprised to hear the scorn in her voice. Even beyond the Wall, where there were few laws, incest was taboo. Gendry scoffed, grinning, as he accepted a horn of mead from Tormund, who was shaking his head.

“Both,” Jon said.

“How many men did you bring?” Tormund asked.

“Those you see here,” Jon said. “It’s my hope we can do the thing quickly, without alerting the White Walkers that we’re there…though I’m not sure how. If they were at Hard Home months ago…”

“They could be waiting beyond the gate,” Yaskier murmured, cheek pouched with fish stew, his eyes widening in sudden horror.

“We looked; they’re not,” Hvitserk said, with a roll of his eyes.

“No word reached me at Dragonstone that the Wall had been forsaken,” Jon said quietly, glancing at Long Tom, Greef, Yaskier and Kenner. “We were hoping some of the brothers could help.”

“Jon…you saved us at Hard Home,” said Karsi, and she shook her head, “and for that I owe you my life, and those of my daughters. Let me save yours, now; do not go beyond the Wall. You know what waits for you there.”

“I do. That’s why I must go,” Jon sighed. “We need more men; we can’t get them, without southern support. And they’re stubborn and stupid and spoiled, and I need to shock the hell out of them if we’re to get what we need to defeat the Night King’s armies.”

“You really want to go out there, again?” Tormund clarified, his voice low, concerned. They had both survived Hard Home, though barely. He glanced at Greef, at Hali. He sighed heavily, shaking his head. “Southern fools. You’re not the _only_ ones trying to get beyond the Wall.”

“What do you mean?”

“Finish your stew, first,” said Karsi, sensibly, as Tormund rose. They finished their meals, grateful for them, and Tormund led Jon - with Gendry as his hulking shadow - to the ice-cells.

“Asa scouted them a mile south of the Wall,” Tormund said, stopping by one large cell, inside which several bedraggled-looking men seemed to be resting. As they neared the cell, Gendry started to laugh softly. He leaned against the cell door, grinning.

“Well, this is a twist of fate,” he said, his voice rich with irony. Several of the men looked up. “Remember me?”

“Gendry,” said one of the men, who wore an eye-patch, his hair thinning. “I remember you. I remember all of them.”

“You know these men?” Jon asked. Gendry nodded, his eyes narrowed.

“They’re the Brotherhood without Banners. During the War of the Five Kings, they claimed to protect the smallfolk from the horrors of war…they sold me to a Red Witch to be murdered,” Gendry said fiercely, scowling at the men.

“You’re still alive?” said a soft, silky voice in the shadows. He sat forward, pale eyes glowing in the brittle light. He stared at Gendry. “How? The Lady Melisandre took you for a purpose.”

“She did.”

“How are you still alive?”

“Because in spite of how _you_ treated me, there are still men out there who do what is _right_ ,” Gendry said fiercely. “He freed me, when the Red Woman wanted to burn me alive, offer me up as sacrifice so her god would put Stannis Baratheon on the Iron Throne.”

The man with the pale eyes peered at Gendry through the gloom.

“And how would your death have helped put Stannis on the throne?”

“King’s blood,” Gendry said softly. “The King’s blood, flowing through my veins… King Robert was my father.”

Jon turned to stare at Gendry. _That_ was why he seemed so familiar. He definitely looked like Robert Baratheon, with his fierce, flashing blue eyes and black hair - though he was a lot leaner. He resembled Stannis, somewhat. That’s why Gendry’s looks felt so familiar to Jon, yet he had not been able to place them. There was a hint of Stannis in Gendry’s occasional sternness, but the two men were very different in personality, Gendry open and charismatic, fierce-hearted, humorous.

“ _You_ were one of Robert Baratheon’s bastards,” said another man, wrapped in a tattered cloak. “Thought Joffrey and Cersei had you all hunted down like vermin.”

“They tried,” said Gendry stubbornly. Jon recognised the man by his burned face.

“You’re the Hound. Sandor Clegane,” Jon said, staring. From what Sansa had said, he had rescued her during the bread-riots in King’s Landing, and offered to take Sansa to freedom during the Battle of the Blackwater. The huge, scarred man barely turned his head to stare back at Jon; he was lying on his back on a bench, wrapped in a tattered cloak. At Jon’s words, he sat up.

“And you’re the White Wolf,” he growled back softly, the nastiness in his tone softened by the thoughtfulness in his face as he stared at Jon. “Ned Stark’s bastard.”

“I am.”

“You and her, you look alike,” he growled, scowling. Jon frowned.

“Who?”

“That cold little bitch, Arya,” the Hound grunted.

A soft voice in the shadows said, “Not still sore about that trial, are you, Clegane?”

“No, not about that,” said the Hound ominously.

“They want to go beyond the Wall too,” Tormund told Jon.

“We don’t _want_ to go beyond the Wall, we _have_ to,” said the man with the eye-patch, his voice deep and rich. “Our Lord told us that the Great War is coming.”

“The last thing your _Lord_ told you was to sell me to the Red Witch to be murdered,” Gendry rumbled. “I’m alive, and you’re locked in a cell. Tells you something about your Lord, doesn’t it?”

“Aye,” said the man with the eye-patch. “Perhaps it does… Here we all are…at the edge of the world, at the same moment, heading in the same direction, for the same reason.”

“You don’t know what our reasons are,” said Gendry coldly.

“It doesn’t matter what we think our reasons are,” said the man. “There’s a greater purpose at work. And we serve it together, whether we know it or not. We may take the steps, but the Lord of Light -“

“For fuck’s sake, will you shut your hole?” interrupted the Hound impatiently. He raised his dark eyes to Jon. “Are we coming with you or not?”

“Don’t you want to know what we’re doing?” Jon asked, frowning.

“Is it worse than sitting in a freezing cell waiting to die?” asked the pale-eyed man.

Jon sighed heavily. “Let them out.”

“You’re sure?” Tormund asked.

“We’re all still breathing. That puts us on the same side,” Jon said grimly, and Tormund shrugged, unlocking the cell door.

The Brotherhood were given the last of the stew, while Yaskier and Karsi outfitted the newcomers with furs; Jon contributed obsidian daggers. They weren’t much, but the idea wasn’t that they were waging a full-scale war against the Night King; they were only there to sneak in and lead a raid on his soldiers to carry one off.

A wall of snow three-feet high collapsed as the gate rose, and the wind howled through the icy tunnel. Jon sighed, as they stood at the gate. Ser Davos, who was staying behind, had opened the gate; he would let them back through the Wall later. He turned to the others, swaddled in rough furs, carrying their obsidian weapons, each of them strapped with coils of rope, a skin of strong drink and enough dried meat to keep them going, the means to make fire and shovels to carve dig from the snow - these, brought on the advice of the Free Folk, who had survived more winters above the Wall than any Ranger of the Night’s Watch had ever dared.

Before they set off, Jon glanced at the others - at perpetually-angry Obara, at grim but determined Karsi; at Asa and Sigurd, two Thenns who had battled at Hard Home, evidence of it in Asa’s lost eye, Sigurd’s mutilated face; at Lord Tarly, bristling in his wildling furs, and by his side, his favoured son, handsome and nervous; at Ser Jorah, following in his father’s footsteps; and Lord Barahir, new to Jon’s cause, but adaptable and determined, and the rest, men he had never met but appreciated their presence, remembering the notorious strength and skill of the Hound. “I hope we can get this over and done with as quickly as possible.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Yaskier winced, looking wounded, and he held a gloved hand over his heard. “I’ve heard that far too many times before.”

Gendry laughed, and the tension faded. Whatever they were to face, it did not jump out at them as they stepped out of the tunnel, leaving the safety of the Wall at their backs.

In fact, they met nothing. No life, but for the trees and the howling of the wind as it snatched at their furs, and even that died down as they left the Wall behind them, and started their long march. As night fell away, a pale white light guided their way, and soon the sky was bright and blue overhead, the snow beneath their feet glittering, and they were tugging at their furs uncomfortably.

“Sam…ventured beyond the Wall with you, Your Grace?” It was Dickon Tarly, and Jon glanced at Sam’s younger brother.

“He did… I thought Sam would have stopped at Horn Hill on his way to the Citadel,” Jon frowned softly. “Did he not mention the Great Ranging?”

“He…wasn’t much encouraged to speak of his time at the Wall,” said Dickon fairly, with a wince. “But his lady, Gilly…she… She stood up to my father. I’d never seen anyone do that.”

“Gilly’s endured worse than your father,” Jon said grimly.

“My mother liked her,” Dickon said. “She was kind and she…she has _faith_ in Sam. Mother said…she saw Sam’s true worth, which my father never could.”

“Sam’s a lot braver than he thinks he is,” Jon said, “and a far better man than he knows. He is one of the best men I have ever known.”

“I never spent much time with Sam,” Dickon admitted, almost mournfully. “Father would not allow it; I was in the training yard most of my childhood…but I do remember Sam reading to me. He’d sit me on his knee - when I was still small enough! - and he’d tell me stories. They were wonderful… I always enjoyed it when Sam opened a book; all the things he could tell me… Would you tell me more stories of my brother’s adventures, Your Grace?”

They were as different in looks, Jon thought, as a sword and a scroll, and yet, as they walked through the ice-meadows, and Jon told of the Great Ranging and Sam’s stewardship, naming Jon as candidate for Lord Commander, Sam’s bravery during the Battle for Castle Black, his wisdom and guidance to Jon, his bravery in defending Gilly, Jon knew that deep down, despite appearances, Dickon Tarly shared the same profound sense of _integrity_ that Jon had always respected in Sam.

“You still angry at us, then?” wheeled Thoros of Myr, as he tottered beside Gendry, stoppering his skin of black-strap molasses rum. Gendry glanced at the drunk.

“I spend all my days _hitting_ things; my anger’s long since spent. Besides, anger makes you stupid,” he replied, glancing up ahead at the King, remembering what he had told the girl at Dragonstone. “Stupid gets you killed.” Gendry frowned, and glanced at the Hound. “You defeated Lord Beric in the trial-by-combat. The Brotherhood set you free. Why are you still sore about Arya naming you a murderer?”

“I’m not sore about _that_ ,” said the Hound, his tone aggressive. He scowled at Gendry. “That little bitch left me to die.”

“When?” Gendry asked.

“After she’d scarpered from us,” said Thoros. “After we sold you to the Lady Melisandre. Ran off into the woods - this one snatched her out of the shadows. Had her wandering all over the Riverlands, from what we’ve wheedled out of him, trying to find anyone who’d pay for her.”

“Don’t tell me tiny Arya got the better of _you_?” Gendry smirked at the Hound, who scowled.

“Not her.”

“Who, then?”

“It was a woman.”

“A woman?” Thoros said, his eyebrows raised, and he gave a smoky laugh. “A woman bested you, Clegane? Did she get you deep into your cups same as Anguy, and bludgeon you?”

“No. Single-combat,” the Hound growled irritably. “It was Brienne of fucking Tarth. She’s no ordinary woman.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s a trained warrior,” said Beric Dondarrion. “Her father Lord Selwyn, the Evenstar, had no surviving sons; she would have been the stronger of any of them. She was a more fearsome fighter than any of the Stormlords’ sons, even when I knew of her - they nicknamed her Brienne the Beauty out of spite… I should have liked to see that fight, Clegane.”

“Why were you fighting?” Gendry asked curiously.

The Hound scowled. “She thought Arya Stark needed protecting from me.”

“Arya never needed protecting,” Gendry said fondly. He frowned. “But…how did you and the lady-warrior end up fighting over her?”

“The Tarth bitch had sworn an oath to Catelyn Stark, to protect her daughters and bring them home,” the Hound shrugged.

“So…you were with Arya?” Gendry said, frowning at the Hound.

“That’s what I _said_ , wasn’t it?”

“But - until when? When did she leave you?” Gendry asked, glancing ahead at the King again. He was talking to the tall young Tarly.

The Hound shrugged. “Two years ago, maybe,” he said.

“Where?”

“The Saltpans,” the Hound grunted. “After the Red Wedding. A few days after Lady Arryn took fall from the Eyrie. She took my coin-purse and left me broken.”

The Hound shifted his pack higher on his back, scowled, and shoulder his way past Gendry, the conversation brought abruptly to an end. To Gendry, the Hound didn’t sound so much sore over his defeat as almost _hurt_ at Arya’s abandonment. He marvelled. Arya had still been alive two years ago?! In the Saltpans - away from the fighting that had ravaged the rest of the Riverlands. There was a chance, then…wasn’t there?

Gendry’s last memory of Arya was her telling him, “ _I could be your family_.”

He had been with her for years: Jon had known _nothing_ about her fate until Gendry had arrived at Dragonstone, and told him. And Gendry had seen the young King’s heart break with the news of all Arya had endured. Gendry thought of Arya…the thought of Neva suffering the same fate filled his mouth with the taste of bile, filled his belly with a seething rage that made his hands shake, almost frightening him.

And to learn such things had happened to her, after the fact - powerless to have done anything, because he thought her _dead_ …

He didn’t know how the King could stand it.

But then, Gendry supposed…he had more worries on his mind than just one of the sisters he had lost. There were others, he knew. Arya had called them the Red and the Black: Sansa and the King’s twin-sister, Larra. One kissed by fire, one caressed by moonlight and shadows. That was how she described them. Fire and night. And Larra’s direwolf, Last Shadow - so named, because her shadow was the last thing you were ever likely to see.

Gendry raised his eyes to the brutal, beautiful landscape, the craggy hills and snow-capped peaks, the fissures and gorges filled with ice. This was the direwolves’ natural home, he knew, from all Arya had told him of her own direwolf pup Nymeria.

This was where they had come from. Where the direwolves had come from…and where the Starks had come from, also, years before the Wall, when the First Men had carried bronze spears and rode direwolves into battle against the Others, all through the Long Night…

He shivered, and shook himself. They had a job to do. And he had vowed to himself that he would protect Arya’s brother. He found the King, striding ahead, and kept a close eye on him.

It wasn’t that he distrusted everyone: It was that, well…he was smart enough to realise the two Queens fighting over the Iron Throne would likely _both_ consider the North declaring its independence, with its own King to rule them, as treason.

And one of the Queen’s men was among them, Ser Jorah, a known traitor and slaver.

It would be handy if the King in the North _disappeared_ in the True North.

* * *

The sun beat down on her face, warmer than it had been in days - ever since the King had departed. Days of ice-rain had kept people indoors, and kept Daenerys away from her dragons, who had been spotted, only once, diving into the depths of the Dragonmont, where there were, according to Lord Tyrion, great caves where the dragons of old had nested among the fires and vapours of the volcano.

In their last two conversations alone, Lord Tyrion’s knowledge of ancient Valryian dragon-wisdom had far eclipsed anything Viserys had ever told Daenerys about dragons. Lord Tyrion dropped the little titbits into conversation, taking for granted his great wealth of knowledge, his voice always soft with wonder and respect, as if the mere presence of the dragons had reminded him of his lifelong admiration for the creatures he had, with an abiding sense of grief, bitterly accepted were extinct.

Now, though, Daenerys could see the Lord Hand stood on the cliff-side, wrapped in a great fur cloak, his gaze upturned to watch the dragons as they wheeled and soared and circled high above him. And she beamed, feeing the wind in her hair and watching the water churn beneath her, the air shimmering with the heat radiating from Drogon so that it looked like he was almost smoking as he soared through the gentle rain. Her hair was freshly braided, and she wore a new coat with broad sharp shoulders, deep charcoal-grey wool tufted with narrow vertical stripes of tufted ermine, and down her back, the dainty strips of fur were sewn into an intricate spine that resembled the spikes extending down Drogon’s tail. It was a winter coat, fitting for the coming storms. It had been finished with an elaborate silver chain, looping from her shoulder to her hip, clasped with a three-headed dragon. She was the Mother of Dragons. In this coat, she looked half a dragon herself. She looked a true Winter Queen. And she felt _strong_ , powerful and content, with Drogon’s heat beneath her, radiating deliciously even through her furs and her leather gloves, the wind tugging insistently at her braids, the sun caressing her face every time they swooped around and she felt it fierce on her face.

Drogon swooped, his wings snapping like the clap of thunder as he changed direction in a heartbeat, and Daenerys smiled breathlessly: He was healing. He swooped again, diving, hurtling headlong toward the sea - then at breakneck speed, snapped his wings out; Daenerys gasped, jolting on his back, but clung on as he soared high into the air.

They passed Viserion, who screeched and dropped back to tumble through the air and catch himself, billowing through the mist, and Daenerys smiled, for her children were _playing_.

She glanced around for Rhaegal, frowning, watching her bronze-eyed child swooping on Viserion, butting all his strength against his brother, snapping his great jaws and shrieking. Viserion hissed, and Rhaegal tumbled away, flapping his bronze-veined jade wings mightily, soaring into the air, high, high above them, and Daenerys shuddered, frowning, as Rhaegal dived toward them from above, shrieking and hissing and calling to Drogon, who grumbled and let out a half-hearted roar, as Rhaegal swooped, darting before them, and began circling Drogon, pestering him. Daenerys had never seen Rhaegal act so strangely before - usually her two smaller children never bothered Drogon. But Rhaegal was shrieking and snarling and, Daenerys thought, frowning in consternation, _crying_. Rhaegal snapped delicately at Drogon once, made that beautiful rumbling, purring coo Daenerys knew so well, as if heartbroken and disappointed to be ignored, and fell away.

Drogon roared, and Daenerys’ stomach dropped away as they plunged; Daenerys clung on, and managed to peek about her when Drogon levelled off. Far ahead was a glimmering speck of green; Rhaegal. And chasing after him was a swift bead of bright golden-white light, Viserion. Drogon roared again, and flapped harder, until he had overtaken Viserion, and descended to fly at a level with Rhaegal.

The choppy sea passed beneath them, and Daenerys chanced to twist around, and gazed behind her. Her insides seemed to disappear, as Dragonstone became little more than a dark seam on the horizon.

“Drogon, where are we going?” she asked, striving for calm. He had carried her off once before, and she had ended up at Vaes Dothrak. She had been untouched, but the bloodriders of Khal Moro’s _khalasaar_ could have raped her half a hundred times and left her to die; all because Drogon had abandoned her in the Dothraki sea. “Drogon?”

He ignored her.

Drogon was growling and screeching and cooing to Rhaegal, who kept flying, determinedly beating his great veined wings.

They were communicating, Daenerys understood, as terror settled in, watching the clouds tumble above and the sea thrash below, and her dragons seemed to smoke as they flew through rain, faster and faster, until the sea beneath was nothing but a blur, and Daenerys tucked herself tight against Drogon.

No matter what she said, what she _did_ \- slapping her palm against Drogon’s back, pulling on his great spikes - he ignored her. He was implacable. And her dragons kept flying.

She had never felt so vulnerable, not even when the khalasaar had descended, not when the Sons of the Harpy revealed themselves, not when Khal Drogo led the way through the night to claim her beneath the stars.

Within an hour, she was panting with dread. By the second hour, she saw a rocky shoreline beneath them, to her left side. They were headed north.

The dragons did not stop.

Not even when the weather became stormier, more unforgiving as day turned into night… Her eyes widened, and Daenerys tucked herself against Drogon’s back, though he was heedless of her as her three dragons flew headfirst into billowing, angry storm-clouds. Over the course of hours, she was pelted by ice and hail, alternating soft snows, hellacious winds and brutal thunderstorms that petrified her to her marrow, sobbing as she clung on to Drogon and forks of lightning speared the sky, illuminating everything with a clash and a clamour, as if giants were at war among the clouds, her children uncaring of her suffering.

Day had long turned into night, as she cried and clung on. Night fractured into day, with a hailstorm that had her bones aching and her teeth threatening to shatter as she shivered, Drogon’s warmth the only thing that saved her from freezing to death, utterly exposed to the elements.

She had never known true fear like this, as her eyelashes turning brittle, delicately kissed by ice as they flew through moonlight.

Utterly exhausted, Daenerys knew she would die upon Drogon’s back.

She had always convinced herself of the illusion of having control over the dragons’ actions, her children - especially Drogon, with whom she was bonded so intimately, her husband reincarnated as her fiercest mount…and she wept, her tears stinging her wind-burned cheeks, realising that she had lied to herself, she may have given the dragons life by feeding them to the funeral pyre of her sun and stars…but they were so much _more_ than she would ever be. Strange magic had birthed them; stranger magic still had bonded them. And that bond was mercurial and unknowable, and had lulled her into the belief that she had _power_ over them…the mother of dragons… She had wielded them as weapons, as others would trained hounds or tigers, unshakeable in her belief that they would never turn on her. And yet they were unknowable creatures, fire made flesh, power incarnate, and they were _free_ …

What was the will of one little girl compared to three dragons?

She found herself lulled by the cold above her, the cold within her, Drogon’s heat beneath her. The heat kept her alive, but not conscious; Daenerys drifted into an exhausted sleep, dreaming of her stickily hot tent in the great grass sea, riding her sun and stars to their pleasure…in her dreams, his burnished bronze skin grew pale as moonlight, his oiled braid cut short, his black hair curling all over his head…as it had every time she had this dream. Drogo became Jon Snow, and yet the lust, yearning and admiration in his eyes was the same. She ached for it, as much as she ached for the feel of a man - _that_ man - between her thighs.

She dreamed of Jon Snow, as the fire of her sun and stars reincarnated kept her from death.

* * *

“The first time I went North of the Wall was with your father,” Jon said, glancing at the older knight, as up ahead Yaskier hummed the tune to a song he was composing, called _Dark Sister_. Ser Jorah was as fit and healthy as any of them, and only the unfamiliar terrain made for slow going. But Ser Jorah was of the North; he knew snow, even if he did not know the True North.

“He was a good man,” Ser Jorah sighed regretfully. “He deserved a better son… Were you with him at the end?”

“I was a prisoner of the Free Folk,” Jon admitted sadly. “But we avenged him, I want you to know that. Every one of the mutineers found justice, by my sword or those of my brothers.”

“I can’t think of a worse way for him to go,” Ser Jorah said grimly. “The Night’s Watch was his life. He would have died to protect every one of those men, and they butchered him.”

“I hate that he died that way,” Jon said fiercely, and there was a sad smile on Ser Jorah’s face as he looked at Jon; perhaps he could see the fierce love Jon had had for the Lord Commander, a surrogate father to so many boys like Jon, abandoned at the Wall. Jon sighed heavily, his breath billowing around them like a great cloud that disappeared in the breeze that was today almost gentle. The snows had cleared; they had made good progress. “My father was the most honourable man I ever met. He was good, all the way through. And he died on the executioner’s block.”

“Your father wanted to execute me, you know?” Ser Jorah said.

“I heard.”

“He was in the right, of course. Didn’t make me hate him any less,” Ser Jorah said.

“I’m glad he didn’t catch you,” Jon said. He had heard the stories on Dragonstone, after Ser Jorah’s return. What would the world look like, he wondered, if Ser Jorah had never become young, newly-married Daenerys Targaryen’s protector? He had witnessed the death of her first husband, and the birth of her dragons. He had been with her throughout all of it. Daenerys had a fierce love for him, even if she did not love him the way Ser Jorah would have wanted her to. Time and again, that love provoked Ser Jorah to do extraordinary things for her, things that put his life at great risk. Ser Jorah was adamant that Daenerys Stormborn was worth the fight.

He knew a very different Daenerys to the one Jon had met.

“Me too,” Ser Jorah smiled, and Jon knew he was thinking of his Queen.

Jon sighed, and reached for his belt. He unfastened it, the supple leather giving way, and he offered Long Claw to the older knight. “Your father gave me this sword,” he said softly. “He changed the pommel from a bear to a wolf, but it’s still Long Claw.”

Ser Jorah took the blade, gazing mournfully at it.

“Lord Commander Mormont thought you’d never come back to Westeros. But here you are. And Long Claw’s been in your family for centuries,” Jon said solemnly. “It’s not right for me to keep it.”

“He gave it to you,” Ser Jorah said meaningfully.

“I’m not his son,” Jon said, meeting the knight’s eye. Ser Jorah unsheathed the blade by a few inches, to examine the dark smoky ripples of the folded steel.

“I brought shame unto my House,” Ser Jorah said grimly. “I broke my father’s heart…” He sheathed the blade with a gentle _shnick_. “I forfeited the right to carry this sword.” He passed the blade back. “It’s yours… May it serve you well, and your children after you.”

 _Children_ , Jon thought, with a jolt, as Ser Jorah walked on. Yaskier was still singing softly, and Tormund was talking to Gendry about experiencing his first snow.

“- never seen snow before.”

“And how do you like the True North, hm?” Gendry grunted.

“It’s brutal,” Gendry said, gazing around him. It truly was awe-inspiring; he had never seen anything like it in his life, could never have imagined anything like it. “But beautiful.”

“Brutal and beautiful,” Tormund nodded, with a gruff noise in the back of his throat. Gendry had never met anyone like Tormund, fierce and untamed - but good-humoured. He told tall tales without arrogance, laughed quickly, and according to Jon, was a fierce ally to have, a chilling warrior to have by your side. “It is. I can finally breathe again!” He seemed to come alive the further they roamed, unperturbed by any shifts in the weather, even as it worsened.

This was _home_ to him. And he and the other Free Folk knew how to withstand the storms. They tied ropes to each other, lest they lose each other in an ice-storm with a brutal wind that battered even the Hound.

“You don’t look much like him,” said a voice, and Jon glanced at Lord Beric.

“Who’s that?”

“Your father. I suppose you favour your mother,” he said, and something niggled in the back of Jon’s mind - Lady Olenna. Her suspicions. He frowned at Lord Beric.

“You knew him?”

“Of course I did. Fought beside him during the Rebellion,” Lord Beric said. “When he was Hand, he sent me off hunting for the Mountain. Your wildling friend told me the Red Woman brought you back… Thoros has brought me back six times. We both serve the same Lord.”

“I serve the North,” Jon said stoutly. He knew nothing of the Lord of Light - and after Princess Shireen, had absolutely no interest in joining his cult of followers.

“The North didn’t raise you from the dead,” Lord Beric said.

“The Lord of Light never spoke to me. I don’t know anything about him, I don’t know what he wants from me,” Jon said, with a bite of impatience.

“He wants you alive.”

“Why?” Jon asked, glancing at Lord Beric. Why Jon? Why not one of the thousands of other innocents who had lost their lives at Hard Home? Why not one of his brothers, devoted to the Night’s Watch? Why not Father, or Robb? Why not Larra?

“I don’t know.”

“That’s all anyone can tell me,” Jon sighed. “’I don’t know’. So what’s the point in serving a God if none of us knows what he wants?”

“I think about that all the time,” said Lord Beric. “I don’t think it’s our purpose to understand. Except one thing. We’re soldiers. We have to know what we’re fighting for.” He stopped, turning to Jon. “I’m not fighting so some man or woman I barely know can sit on a throne made of swords.” Jong grunted his agreement.

“So what are you fighting for?” he asked curiously.

“Life,” said Lord Beric simply. “Death is the enemy. The first enemy and the last.”

“But we all die,” Jon said softly. Lord Beric smiled.

“The enemy always wins,” he said, still smiling, “and we still need to fight him. That’s all I know. You and I won’t find much joy while we’re here. But we can keep others alive. We can defend those who can’t defend themselves.”

“I’m the shield that guards the realms of men,” Jon murmured, and smiled. Perhaps it was as simple as that.

“Maybe we don’t need to understand any more than that,” Lord Beric agreed, smiling. “Maybe that’s enough.”

“Aye,” Jon agreed. If that was why he had been brought back…then that was more than enough. To keep doing what he had been doing. To keep fighting, no matter how exhausted he was. “Maybe that’s enough.”

In the corner of his eye, there was a flicker of fire. Not true fire; just Tormund’s wild hair. But Jon’s mind went to the solar, to the firelight glimmering off Sansa’s long hair, as she sewed complacently, tucked against him on the settle.

What wouldn’t he endure, to sit by the fireside with her?

Did it matter _why_ he had been brought back, just that he _had_?

He trudged on, and quickly realised that the others had stopped hiking through the snow. Clegane was stood, watching the snow-capped mountains. The fog and cloud had lifted slightly, and Clegane was pointing.

“That’s what I saw in the fire. A mountain like an arrowhead,” he said.

“The Gods’ Arrow,” Tormund said gruffly. The Thenns said something in an ancient tongue that Jon would have no clue how to write down on parchment; the name of the mountain in the Old Tongue.

“Are you sure?” Thoros asked, and the Hound nodded.

“We’re getting close,” he said softly.

The snowstorm hit them as they descended into a valley, and they bunched together, ropes tied between them to stop them wandering away from each other. One of Tormund’s men went on ahead, staggering against the wind, spear at the ready. Tormund, whose eyes were sharper in the snow, brought them to a halt, as they squinted.

“A bear,” Tormund growled, pointing. “Big fucker.”

Gendry, scowling from inside his fur hood, asked, his deep voice clear through the howling wind, “Do bears have blue eyes?”

They heard the tremendous noise of the bear lumbering toward them - lost him, in the snows, and a startled yell was cut off, Tormund’s man disappearing in a glimpse of lethal fangs, a decomposing maw and vivid, glowing ice-blue eyes. They rushed headlong, and found a bloody smears and a broken spear in the snow.

They stood back to back, weapons at the ready.

The bear attacked out of the storm.

Beric and Thoros lit their flaming swords, and as the bear bit down on one of the Thenns, flinging the warrior with horrifying ease, Beric caught the beast’s fur alight.

Snarling and growling, the burning bear with its vivid blue eyes advanced on the Hound, lumbering in the snow, being consumed by the fire. The Hound did nothing, stood frozen in terror - not at the beast, but at the flames.

Thoros knocked him aside, threw up his sword - was knocked down, shoved the flaming blade of his sword between the beast’s jaws, struggling. Tormund bellowed, attacked the beast. The Hound watched helplessly on the ground, as the beast snarled and bit at the sword, wrenching it from Thoros’ grip, flinging it aside with a vicious snarl - and bit the priest. It bit, embedding its rotting teeth into Thoros’ flesh, snarling and thrashing.

Gendry watched the beast, as he un-looped his new obsidian war-hammer from its leather harness. As the others advanced, with flaming swords and short daggers, he approached.

With a roar, he swung his hammer.

A skull was far softer than an anvil.

All his life, he had been training - maybe not for this, but it certainly made this easier. The beast collapsed, its head caved in, brain and matter splattered, bone crushed, body already being consumed by the fire. Waves of warmth drifted off it, and Gendry stood back, as Yaskier and Lord Beric dragged Thoros away from the flaming carcass.

Gendry panted, exhilaration flooding him, and he stepped away from the bear. Lord Beric’s flaming sword drew his eye, as Yaskier’s nimble fingers deftly tugged Thoros’ clothes away from his chest, the better to see the damage.

“We have to get him back to Eastwatch,” said Ser Jorah grimly, but the Red Priest just shook his head.

“Flask,” he said hoarsely, and Lord Beric offered him the rum. Gendry still remembered the potent, sweet taste of it when the Red Priest had shared the drink, all those years ago. Too sweet for him; he preferred ale. But the Red Priest liked it, was never without it, had once joked that his friends had endured the tedium of his sobriety before: Thoros _needed_ that rum. Especially in that moment, with Lord Beric’s sword blazing above him, his chest carved up like a hot rake had been dragged through butter. He gazed up at his friend, after a healthy dose. “Go on.”

Lord Beric sealed the wounds. Thoros stifled his screams, but the sound of his flesh searing in the heat of the flaming sword was almost too much. The Hound turned away, the light of the burning bear flickering over his scarred face.

Thoros panted, gasping, and his friend covered him up again, Yaskier quick to secure his buttons and fastenings. They could not get cold in a place like this.

“You alright?”

“I just got bit by a dead bear!” Thoros declared indignantly.

“Aye. You did,” Lord Beric chuckled softly.

“Funny old life,” said the Red Priest softly.

“Right then…” They pulled him to his feet.

They had bodies to burn, two of them, and Lord Beric set to it quickly with his flaming sword. It was not honourable, to light them and leave - they had no choice. They could not linger, and if they stayed still too long in this storm… The bear’s bloody footprints had frozen in the snow.

Climbing out of the valley, the worst of the snowstorm abated, and a clear, cold day broke, still grim because of the low clouds, but there was no snow, and the wind had died. In the hours that had passed since the bear, it had occurred to more than one of their party that…Thoros of Myr was dying. He staggered on, struggling to stopper his flask, but he did it, he kept marching alongside them, talking cheerfully with Ser Jorah about charging through the breach on Pyke during the Greyjoy Rebellion.

“I thought you were the bravest man I ever saw.”

“Just the drunkest,” Thoros joked, climbing after the rest as they made their ascent.

Tormund held up a closed fist. Crept up to a boulder to spy below them… Jon crept up beside him, and peered down into a narrow gorge.

There. A line of the King’s soldiers, ambling along.

“Where’s the rest of them?” Jon breathed, his expression dark.

“If we wait long enough, we’ll find out,” Tormund warned. The pushed away from the boulder, and slipped down soundlessly to the others. Quietly, they made their plans. They staged their ambush.

They lit a fire by the trickling creek, little more than a small thermal stream winding through the crevasses of the mountains.

There was only one of the Night King’s commanders leading them, his pace slow, as if enjoying a walk through a flowering meadow. Snarling and jerking around him were his soldiers, a dozen of them.

They needed only one.

Long Claw unsheathed, Jon advanced; the others followed, bellowing their war-cries, attacking the wights.

The commander narrowed his eyes slowly as Jon approached, swinging his razor-thin blade of ice. As Gendry roared and bludgeoned one wight with his great war-hammer, and a second which was overpowering Yaskier on uneven ground, taking its head clean off so that it crumpled at Yaskier’s feet, another wight choked Ser Jorah, and two bore down upon Lord Tarly, who stood shocked, for a moment, at the sight of corpses with blue eyes snarling and raising their weapons against him - until his son appeared out of nowhere, and slew them with a practised swing of his falchion.

They heard the strange, sonorous ringing of Valyrian steel against the razor-sharp ice-sword of the commander, and those without a wight to fight watched as Jon Snow swung his sword - if the commander had been made of flesh and bone, Jon would have cloven him in two through his midsection.

The Other was not made of flesh and blood: He shattered into a thousand pieces of ice, scattering down around Jon’s boots.

With hissing, snarling screams, the wights exploded all around the gorge, startling those who were mid-swing, defending themselves. Piles of bones and decomposing tissue collapsed to the ground. Jon gasped, turned to cast an eye over his men. He saw the wide eyes of Gendry, of the Tarlys, of Ser Jorah and Lord Barahir’s men, Obara Sand blinked dazedly as she poked a pile of bones with the tip of her obsidian spear.

A single wight remained, and as it snarled and thrashed, they surrounded it.

“No obsidian,” Jon said in a low tone, and the others nodded. They needed this one as it was. Their whole reason for being here.

Tormund, being Tormund, punched the creature.

The Hound threw himself over the writhing corpse to pin it to the ground when it staggered back.

It screamed.

A high, animalistic scream, echoing off the walls of the gorge, a _call_ … The Hound tried to cover its mouth; its flesh peeled away, to the horror and disgust of the men who did not know…

Staring in horror at the wight, Dickon Tarly turned to Jon, and panted, “Sam killed one of them?”

“No,” Jon corrected, and he pointed Long Claw at the remnants of what had been one of the Night King’s commanders, glittering in the snow. “He killed one of _them_.” Jon raised his eyes to Dickon, who gaped, and turned to stare at his father. Jon stared at Lord Tarly, as the older man stood, looking utterly harrowed; he raised his eyes to Jon’s face. Jon told him fiercely, “Sam was the one to find dragonglass weapons at the Fist of the First Men. He was the first to kill a White Walker in thousands of years. We know that dragonglass kills White Walkers _because_ of him. We were able to mine it from Dragonstone _because_ of him. Sam’s the wisest and bravest of all my brothers.”

Lord Tarly was visibly stunned, speechless.

It was an uncomfortable process for him, Jon imagined, being educated on the true character of Samwell Tarly.

Thunder started rumbling. Jon turned his gaze to the skies. The clouds were wrong…only they weren’t, he realised, because they were changing as he watched. It wasn’t thunder…it was the clamour of thousands of the Night King’s soldiers. The same sound they had heard at Hard Home.

Hastily, Ser Jorah shoved a canvas bag over the wight’s head, as the others bound it with rope.

“Yaskier!” Jon called, and the young man glanced up. “Run back to Eastwatch. Send a raven to Daenerys Targaryen, tell her what’s happened. She’s the only one who can get here fast enough.” Yaskier nodded hastily, climbing off the ground, his eyes wide, and he turned - and ran, as fast as he could the way they had come. Jon watched him go, as the Hound hauled the wight off the ground. Jon only hoped Yaskier made it back to the Wall at all, let alone in time to save them.

The rest of them ran, out of the gorge, into a wider, open meadow of ice…

Not a meadow.

A lake.

A frozen lake.

The ice fractured as they ran out onto it.

“ _Stop_!” They froze; the ice continued to fracture.

The hordes descended.

Ice before them; death behind them. They ran, for the rocky outcrop jutting up at the heart of the lake.

“Go!” Gendry shouted, falling back, and he eyed the ice, fractured under their weight. The hordes…were harrowing, he thought, but paid them no mind as he choked up his grip on his war-hammer, and swung it with all his might.

The ice fractured, and the wights disappeared in a heartbeat as ice-water churned up, claiming the corpses. On the uneven ground, Gendry staggered; someone grabbed him from behind as he slipped, and they stumbled back - away from the fractured ice.

“Come on!” Jon gasped, and Gendry regained his footing, and ran. Behind them, the wights thrashed and flung themselves toward the living - they disappeared under the ice - but more ran around the great fissure… They made it to the rock, climbed on top of it, glad of solid footing beneath them.

Gendry turned, and watched. Gripped his hammer, as the others adjusted the grip on their weapons, ready.

The dead surged in like the pounding waves on the shores of Dragonstone, relentless and even more dangerous.

The rumble of thunder had warned them of the horde’s approach. Great ominous _cracks_ echoed off the mountains rising up around them, over the snarls of the writhing masses - and the ice, compromised by their weight, shattered by Gendry’s war-hammer, fractured.

Some reached the rock, but met their obsidian blades.

They watched in quiet awe as the ice collapsed, and the wights dropped out of sight, the water churning. Not for long: They could not swim.

“That was some hit,” Tormund said, as Gendry stared. He was strong, he knew it; but he had never done anything like that. Never had a need to.

“A lucky hit,” Gendry said. What had he done?! He had fallen back - to give the others time, to compromise their enemy’s advance - Rhysand’s flashing eyes, Neva’s smile flickered in his mind’s eye, and his heart ached. What had he done? He had risked…never seeing them again.

The wights snarled and thrashed, and sank beneath the water. But more had stopped, eerily still, waiting at the very edges, where solid land had frozen over, not water. They formed a ring around the lake. And at the heart of it, surrounded by icy water and impenetrable walls of the dead…they were stuck.

The captive wight snarled and thrashed, almost mockingly.

* * *

Yaskier _ran_.

As night drew in, he ran on, faster than he knew he could move, ignoring his discomfort as his lungs screamed and his legs ached. He was spurred on by the very real terror of having to explain to Lady Larra that she had been within weeks of reuniting with her twin-brother…and it was Yaskier’s fault he had died before that could happen, because Yaskier hadn’t been fast enough.

What were the White Walkers compared to Lady Larra’s wrath?

She’d carve him up with her shining sword and feed him piece by piece to her direwolf while he watched. And she would weep as she did it, for the brother she had been so close to reuniting with, and lost because of him. And _that_ would kill him, Yaskier knew. Her tears. He never could stand for women to cry in front of him. One glimmer of tears and he was theirs, utterly. That was how he had ended up at the Wall in the first place.

A beauty had sent him to the Wall: A beauty had commanded him to abandon it.

Yaskier was nothing if not a slave to the whims of beautiful women. He fell in love far too easily, and far too often.

But he also respected Lady Larra, from their time journeying together from the Wall to Winterfell: She was tough and fierce and had a sharp wit and a profound sense of loyalty, and loved so deeply, it hurt Yaskier to witness it.

All he had ever wanted was to be loved by someone, the way Larra loved so ferociously.

He knew it hurt her to love so fiercely. He knew it hurt her to be separated from her brother.

They would not be parted by death, because of _him_.

So he ran, and ran, and ran…and finally, blessed Mother above! The Wall. Never, in his all his time as a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch, had Yaskier ever truly been _glad_ to see it. Taking the black had not been his choice. And yet it had become his life.

Approaching the gate, waving his aching arms to and fro like a madman, he hollered and shouted, hoping the wind would not snatch his voice from the ears of those he needed to hear it.

He stumbled, finally defeated, as he slipped on a patch of ice and collapsed in a heap. He was vaguely aware of the rattle of enormous chains, and then the glow of firelight smarting his eyes, and someone shook him.

“ _Yaskier_!” The accented voice of Karsi, chieftainess of the people of the Frozen Shore.

“Raven!” he gasped, shivering. “Ravens! Daenerys Targaryen! They’re trapped. Have to send a raven!”

“ _Help me get him inside_ …”

The flames guttered out, and he was hefted off the ground, carried between two people.

Ser Davos’ voice was urgent as he asked Yaskier for details. He was so tired; all he could do was repeat what Jon had said. “Daenerys Targaryen. Daenerys. They’re trapped…”

* * *

“ _Thoros_?!” The snarls of their captive wight had woken them from their doze; they hadn’t dared to truly sleep, taking it in turns to stand watch and huddle against each other for warmth, all through the night. Now, the light was brighter, and Lord Beric was leaning over his friend.

Thoros of Myr gazed up at the sky, as snow drifted gently from the soft pale-grey clouds. His face was chalky, now. The light had left his eyes. Lord Beric whispered a devastated, “ _Thoros_.”

But they all knew.

Lord Beric draped his friend’s cowl over his face, and the Hound knelt beside him.

“They say it’s one of the better ways to go,” he said, with an uncharacteristic gentleness. Then he stole the priest’s flask of rum.

“Lord of Light…show us the way,” said Beric softly, folding his friend’s arms over his chest. “Come to us in our darkness and lead your servant into the Light.”

With a scowl, Jon snatched the flask from Clegane. The other men did not know how wights came into being; but the Free Folk and the Watch had learned how to stop the strange magic from taking hold. “Lord Beric…we have to burn his body.”

“He would have wished it so,” said Lord Beric gravely, gazing down at his friend.

“We’ll all be close behind him,” Tormund said gently, as Jon splashed rum over the dead man’s body. “Unless the Lord of Light is kind enough to send us a bit of fire.”

Lord Beric unsheathed his sword, and in a dramatic gesture, he lit it, flames dancing along the steel. The Hound turned away, as the blade lowered.

“Lord of Light,” said Lord Beric sombrely, “come to us in our darkness….”

“For the night is dark, and full of terrors,” Gendry sighed, watching the flames take hold, and Lord Beric’s eyes met his across his friend’s burning body. Gendry remembered the prayer; he had sometimes found himself thinking it, as he lit a candle in the night to chase away his children’s terror - Rhysand suffered nightmares he never spoke about, even with Gendry, and Neva woke herself crying for her mother. By the light of the candle, they could always find Gendry, to cuddle up beside him as he slept by the hearth. He watched the flames catch on Thoros’ furs, his hair, and closed his eyes, turning away, thinking not of the burning man but of his children, of Neva’s gentle smile and Rhysand’s sharp wit and rare affection. Dark and fair, they were - and his.

“Who are you thinking of?” Jon asked him quietly.

“My children,” Gendry said hollowly. He raised his brilliant blue eyes to Jon. “And you?”

“Sansa,” he said mournfully. By now, the Lannister girls might have reached Winterfell, and with them, Neva and Rhysand, and the letter he carried for Sansa.

In one paragraph, he had told Sansa what to do to prepare if Jon succeeded in this mission.

Another detailed what she must do if he failed.

They would know, soon enough. That he had failed. That he had taken the risk…and lost everything. In the fires of Thoros’ burning body, Jon saw her vibrant red hair, her stern eyes and the exquisite sweetness of her rare smiles. His battered heart moaned and ached, sobbing, for just one more evening in the solar, cuddled up with her under the warmth of the fur, the fire crackling lazily, lulling him to sleep - the most relaxed he had been in years.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted to go home to Sansa.

“We’ll all freeze soon.” The querulous voice of Lord Tarly. His face was still dour, but there was a strange sort of respect shining in his eyes, and he stood beside Jon, sighing heavily. “And so will the water. It’s only a matter of time, which kills us. The cold or the dead…”

“Not what I’d hoped for,” Jon said quietly.

“When you slayed the White Walker, almost all the dead that followed it were destroyed,” Lord Tarly muttered. “Why?”

“Maybe he was the one who turned them?” Jon muttered.

“Has such a thing happened before?”

“Not in my experience,” Jon said. “Hard Home…was a massacre. I killed a White Walker there, but there were…so many. So many wights, and more commanders who did not engage in the battle… Ancient magic created the wights; if the ones who wield that power are destroyed, it makes sense that what they control is also destroyed.”

“Take out the commanders, take out the legions,” Lord Tarly said, and Jon remembered that he had been the only one to defeat Robert Baratheon in battle.

“The one time in history where killing the commanders really would put an end to the war,” Jon said grimly, and Lord Tarly nodded.

“How many are there?”

“I’ve never seen their full strength,” Jon admitted. “At Hard Home, the Night King was there…maybe twenty commanders…but if they’re his generals…”

“There will be more,” Lord Tarly said grimly. “Far more. They have a King?”

“The oldest and strongest of them,” Jon said, and he nodded, across the lake, where five Walkers sat upon dead horses, carrying great spears of ice, watching stoically, as they had for hours, their blue eyes glowing through the night. Even from here, Jon could see the horned ice crown of the King glinting in the brittle light. “The very first White Walker.”

“The very first? Then he created the rest,” said Lord Tarly, glaring across the ice. “He created them. His death will destroy them.”

“We’ll never get close enough,” Jon said firmly, giving Lord Tarly a warning glare. “Our best chance is Daenerys Targaryen, even if we freeze to death before she can get here… If she comes beyond the Wall, she’ll see…she’ll _understand_ …and if she is the woman Ser Jorah believes in, then she will do what is right. We may not live, but others will…”

“If that’s the case,” Lord Beric said, appearing at Jon’s other side, “then we might as well fight, give everything we have. The Lord brought you back, he brought me back. No-one else, just us. Did he do it to watch us freeze to death?”

“Careful, Beric,” the Hound warned, his voice dripping with irony. “You’ve lost your priest. This is your last life.”

“I’ve been waiting for the end for a long time,” Lord Beric said carelessly. “Maybe the Lord brought me here to find it.”

“Every Lord I’ve ever met’s been a cunt,” the Hound said bluntly. “I don’t see why the Lord of Light should be any different.”

They waited. They waited, clinging to the tiniest flicker of _hope_ \- that Yaskier had not been killed, waylaid by more wights on his journey back to the Wall; that the ravens were not caught in storms on their way to Dragonstone; that Daenerys Targaryen would heed their call for help…

Jon glanced at Ser Jorah, frowning thoughtfully. Her oldest friend… She would come for him, no matter her personal and political feelings about Jon or any of the others. Yes, she would come for him…but in time?

Jon had said it so easily, that if they died while waiting for her arrival, then at least Daenerys would see the truth with her own eyes.

But it was one thing to say it, and quite another to sit, for hours, with nothing to do but think about the realities - if they did _not_ make it out of this frozen lake alive… Who would take over the war preparations? It would be left…to Sansa.

Sansa, and Daenerys, and whoever else they could convince.

And how would that work? With Jon’s death, Sansa would become Queen in the North, and Jon knew her stance on Northern independence - she would fiercely defend it, with her life…and Daenerys would take it, when Sansa stood in her way, and refused to yield the North.

If Sansa refused…and Daenerys had fought side-by-side with the North…what rights would Daenerys feel entitled to, over dominion over the North that she had _saved_ , as she had saved Astapor, and Yunkai, and Meereen?

What would happen to Sansa, without Jon to be her shield, her sword?

How could he protect her if he was dead?

“It’s stopped snowing.” Dickon was frowning at the sky, his palm outstretched.

“It’s getting colder,” said Tormund grimly, and Jon’s eyes lowered. Every Northman knew that if it got _too_ cold, it would not snow: Ice would settle instead.

And ice was forming, before their very eyes…the Night King on his dead horse had raised his hand. The wights snarled in unison, shuddering awake, after waiting, still and ominous all night, and for every inch the ice grew…they advanced…

They palmed their weapons, said their silent prayers, and fought.

Obara Sand was a marvel with her double-ended spear; and Gendry, an untrained soldier, was truly gifted with his war-hammer. Jon carved through the wights with Long Claw, and fought back-to-back with Ser Jorah, as Tormund fought back-to-back with Dagonet. Lord Beric slashed out with his flaming sword, and burning corpses soon glowed in the miserable light, snarling and hissing and thrashing about, knocking into other wights, the ice beneath their feet glistening wetly. The heat melted the ice again; more wights crashed through the unstable ice, and they fought on.

“ _Fall back!_ ” Jon bellowed, and they did, and the Hound grabbed Tormund, pinned to the ground by more wights, some using him to lever themselves out of the ice-water, and Obara covered their retreat, aweing to watch as she spun and stabbed and moved like a sand-snake, quick and lethal.

And yet…

Sigurd stumbled, fighting a wight; he fell, and the horde tore him apart. Jon stared at where the great Thenn had disappeared beneath the sea of wights, and their horrifying, decaying faces turned to his. His breath gusted before him, too cold now to snow; ice-crystals started to sparkle on the air, as the cold bit at is face, and across the lake, the Night King was faintly smiling. The ice hardened beneath the wights, and Jon could hear it, the strange noise of ice settling and groaning. The wights climbed on top of each other as he watched, clawing to get at him; they climbed the rock. He raised Long Claw, dreaded his end, a flicker of vibrant red hair in his mind’s eye as he accepted it, and heard the clap of thunderclouds signalling _more_ hordes descending…

An explosion of fire, ripping through the sky; Jon saw the glow on the wights’ faces and ducked on instinct, and understood in that heartbeat: The thunderclaps were wings. The light was fire. _Dragonfire_.

The fire shocked him; he shuddered and straightened, hands still gripping Long Claw, and he gasped, relief sweeping through him, as Rhaegal swooped and bathed an entire legion of wights in fire. Even from here, Jon could feel its heat.

And Rhaegal was not alone. Viserion the white-and-gold screamed and bathed another legion in fire as the wights ran mindlessly toward the attack.

Stunned, Jon glanced at the others, their faces masks of shock and relief and exultation as they watched the three dragons dance above them, destroying entire legions with a single burst of wildfire. Clearing the way.

Clegane grabbed the wight, through it over his shoulder, as Drogon roared and landed nearby, his scarred neck extended as he breathed a great swathe of fire across the advancing legions, turning them to ash, melting the ice, making the water bubble… Jon glanced down, at Drogon’s feet, where his enormous heat was turning the ice beneath him slick…it was melting.

A pale face caught his attention: Daenerys. Her eyes were barely open, glinting in the light of Drogon’s fire: She raised her head, though barely, and her gaze rested on Jon. Her lips parted on his name, but he did not hear her voice.

“ _QUICK_!” he bellowed. Drogon climbed onto the rock, as if he understood the danger, and they ducked as he opened his great jaws, bathing more of the wights in flames. Vserion swooped and wheeled and circled overhead, bathing the lake in more fire. “ _EVERYONE CLIMB ON!_ ”

He saw more wights advancing, saw bursts of fire from Viserion, frowned as he noticed Rhaegal had disappeared - he slashed out with Long Claw, determined to give everyone precious time to climb on Drogon’s back.

Ser Jorah climbed, his first time ever daring approach Drogon so closely; as the others hastily climbed on, holding on where they could - the Hound literally lodged the wight on Drogon’s great spiky spine - Jorah reached for Daenerys. Her lips were dark as blueberries, her face pale and wind-chapped. And she was cold, so icy cold, Jorah knew…she would die, if she did not get warm soon. Hypothermia, the maesters called it.

He covered her with his body, chilled though he was he was still warmer than her, and he lent her what little warmth he had, shielding her body - from the cold, yes, but from the wights, too, still advancing, even as Drogon bathed them in dragonfire.

“Ser Jorah,” Daenerys sighed, barely a whisper, but his heart seized at the sound of it, relief sweeping through him, as much as it had when Rhaegal had descended from the clouds, bathing them in the protection of his fire. Now Rhaegal had disappeared into the clouds again, as Viserion circled and wheeled and screamed as he bathed the wights in fire.

“ _Jon_!” Gendry bellowed; he was still fighting. Fighting to give them time. Ser Jorah shouted for the young man, but Gendry had turned back, rather than climb onto Drogon’s back, and went after Jon.

“ _Go_!” Jon shouted, slashing, and Gendry scowled, bellowing as he took the heads off three walkers with a single swing, as he watched movement across the lake. The commanders had climbed down off their horses. He struck out again, covering Jon; and when he saw one of the generals hand the Night King a great spear of ice, Gendry _knew_.

What was the white one’s name? He struck out, bludgeoning a wight attempting to ambush Jon from behind as he dealt with another two. He remembered Lord Tyrion telling Neva about them.

“ _VISERION_!”

If anyone had any doubt that Gendry was the son of Robert Baratheon, even Lord Randyll Tarly glanced over from Drogon’s back, thrown back twenty-odd years to the Battle of Ashford, Robert’s bellows echoing across a battlefield as he led his men. Gendry had inherited his father’s battlefield voice, the deep bellow that cut through even the clamour of battle.

And the dragon heard him.

In the second it took for Viserion to turn in mid-air, the Night King’s aim was thrown off.

His spear did not strike true.

It did not hit Viserion’s neck; it glanced off his armoured spine, shattering. A piece lodged itself in his wing-joint.

Viserion’s scream was terrible, and he hurtled toward the mountainside - but he was alive, and his clawed feet found purchase on the ragged rocks.

A general handed over another spear.

“ _GO NOW! GO! LEAVE!_ ”

Drogon rose, bathing the lake in fire once more, and he screamed at his brother, whose blood splattered the mountainside, but who rose, his wings beating furiously against the pain.

Jon glanced at Gendry, who breathed deep, and accepted it. He choked up his grip on his obsidian hammer, glaring at the Night King and his commanders, daring them to come closer, to face them, not send their creatures.

They ran, back toward Drogon - they had enough time to climb on his back, as he unfurled his great wings. Ice cracked behind him, and Gendry glanced back - Jon had fallen through the ice. Long Claw landed with a clatter beside a gaping hole where Jon had stood a heartbeat before.

Without thinking, Gendry skidded and turned back. He threw himself onto the ice, as Jon splashed and struggled, and disappeared. Heedless of the danger at his back, Gendry thrust the haft of his hammer out into the water. Grunted, as something jerked at it.

He pulled.

Jon resurfaced, spluttering, shocked from the ice-cold water, his hair already starting to freeze.

Gendry jumped, as great wings beat overhead, and the green-and-bronze dragon descended, screaming and breathing fire; he landed behind them. Ahead, Gendry saw _fire_. Where the Night King and his commanders had been was now only fire, and, perhaps, movement flickering within the flames.

“ _DON’T LET GO_!” Gendry bellowed, using his hammer to drag Jon to the edge of the hole, and lever him out of the water. He grabbed Jon’s hand, and pulled him out of the water, twice his weight for the water clinging to his furs, already starting to freeze - but he got Jon out. Rhaegal screamed, and Gendry threw aside his obsidian hammer; he picked up Long Claw in one hand, and threw Jon over his shoulder. He ran to the dragon, who had dipped its wing for them to climb on.

He not-quite-so-gently shoved Jon onto the dragon’s back, climbing up beside him, instantly feeling the intense heat of the dragon. The dragon gave itself a shake, shrieked, spread its wings, and in two great flaps like thunder, he had risen from the rock. The other two dragons were nowhere to be seen, and Rhaegal rose in the air, away from the clamour of the hordes.

They did not fly south: By Gendry’s estimation, it was north-east they flew, over the mountains… Rhaegal grumbled, low and dangerous, his body seemingly smoking as his heat reacted with the brutal cold around them, and Gendry kept a stunned Jon pinned to Rhaegal’s back, an arm banded over him, tucking the slenderer man close, keeping them both pinned against the dragon’s back, heat searing through so that Gendry finally understood just how _cold_ he had been, relaxing in shuddering, painful waves as the heat lulled him. Not for long: the reason for Rhaegal’s detour became apparent, as they skirted another mountain-range, and Gendry heard it.

More dead.

Rhaegal descended from a bank of clouds, and Gendry saw…seas of the dead. Rhaegal flew low, and Gendry watched in horror, Jon stirring beside him at the sight of entire hosts of _giants_ and woolly _mammoths_ waiting patiently with tens of thousands of more soldiers tucked safely out of sight of the frozen lake.

The rest of the Night King’s army.

The lake had been but a glimpse of the army, little more than the vanguard.

Rhaegal targeted the _giants_. The mammoths. He bathed them in fire, setting them alight. Bathed legions in fire. And before the White Walkers could react, he banked and rose, higher than the mountaintops, until Gendry was lightheaded, and they were out of range, and he thought they might be flying south.

Ice-sleet started to lash down, and Rhaegal rose, higher than the clouds, above the storm.

Gendry shook Jon, whose eyes had closed…

“Jon… Jon, stay awake!” Gendry told him. What had Arya once said, of the brother who was going to take the black - she had worried that he would die of cold in his sleep, the way so many Rangers did, caught beyond the Wall in winter.

The worst thing you could ever do in true _cold_ , Arya had said, was give in and sleep.

You would never wake up.


	31. Wolf Girl, Dragon Boy, Wolf Boy, Dragon Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there have been some glitches on FanFiction.net, which prompted me to upload this entire story to AO3 tonight!
> 
> I'll be posting to both FF.net and AO3 from now on.

**Valyrian Steel**

_31_

_Wolf Girl, Dragon Boy, Wolf Boy, Dragon Girl_

* * *

In the mountains of west Dorne, a gleaming white castle with a pale tower guarded the mouth of great frothing river as it rushed heedlessly to the Summer Sea, a pale tower glimmering like a sword thrust toward the skies in the dying sunshine that stained the skies blood-orange, fuchsia and purple, and the mountains surrounding them a rich, burning red. _Starfall_.

Legend told that the castle had been built where a magic stone struck the earth after hurtling across the heavens. From that stone was forged not just a legendary sword, and warriors who wielded it, but the castle, to commemorate its landing-place.

The Daynes had been the power in western Dorne long before Nymeria ever sailed across the seas.

Recent history had documented that Lord Eddard Stark, after discovering his sister dying in a modest tower in the Dornish mountains, had returned Dawn to House Dayne, here at Starfall… He had slain Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, and brought the sword home in place of he who had wielded it.

A noble act. Lord Varys could not help but think of Lord Eddard Stark’s greatsword, _Ice_ , melted down for two obscenely gilded blades claimed by House Lannister.

Ashara Dayne had plummeted to her death after flinging herself from Palestone Sword into the sea, and rumour had it that she had taken her own life after the birth of a stillborn daughter…or having her children taken from her…or because she had been dishonoured at the Tourney of Harrenhall…or out of grief over her brother’s death.

None of those things had ever been proven, and there were none now to ask the truth of the thing.

One thing was irrefutable. A wet-nurse from Starfall had accompanied Ned Stark north to Winterfell, nursing the twin babes he had fathered during the Rebellion. She had nursed the twins, and accompanied a simple casket containing the bones of Lady Lyanna, draped with a Stark banner and a wreath of winter roses. That wet-nurse had later returned to the south, when the babes had been settled in the nursery of Winterfell, with a Northern wet-nurse, and Lord Stark awaited the arrival of his lady-wife and their newborn son and heir, Robb Stark, who had become the Young Wolf, the first King in the North in three centuries.

Until now, it had never been in Varys’ interests to pull on that particular thread.

In the balmy warmth and delicate sea-foam of the Torintine, Lord Varys drifted among the hibiscus, finally following the thread, from the bowels of Starfall’s kitchens to a modest dwelling of white stone with a kitchen-garden overflowing with herbs and a small harvest of early-winter crops, to a small hearth, at which a grandmother sat, contentedly sewing.

He had had it confirmed by those who had once been young during the Rebellion: Ashara Dayne had given birth to no bastards, living or otherwise.

Lord Eddard Stark had arrived at Starfall with the twins, the casket, and the sword of House Dayne. The wet-nurse had already been with him; but she _had_ been a servant of Starfall, as generations of her family had been before her.

He saw it in her face, as he was shown to the hearth by a woman with a toddler in her hip, children tugging at her apron-strings and gazing with unabashed curiosity at him. The daughter chided her children, sent them out of the small parlour, so that Lord Varys and her mother might have privacy. The older woman squinted at him in the firelight, lowering her embroidery.

“So… You found me.”

“Oh, I never lost you,” Lord Varys assured her, folding his hands in his sleeves. “My little birds trilled their songs to me over the years, keeping me informed, and yet until recently, I had no reason whatsoever to wound you by digging into your past. I am sorry it will not be a more pleasant conversation.”

“It’s never pleasant, telling ghost-stories,” sighed the woman. She gave him a shrewd look. “Those babes nursed at my breast…I swaddled them, cared for them…what d’you intend to do with them?”

“There is now nothing more that can be done to the daughter,” said Varys quietly, and the woman winced. “The True North claimed her years ago. She is safe now in the memories of those who had loved her… But the son. The son lives. He _thrives_.”

“We’ve heard the stories. The White Wolf, who protected his sister’s inheritance - and defended her honour - and laid waste to their family’s enemies upon the moors of Winterfell,” said the woman, with quiet awe.

“Yes,” Varys said softly. “The babe you cared for is a tired warrior, and a fine young man. A great leader, intimidating to nobles and queens alike, and he inspires great trust and admiration and love in the smallfolk.”

“And what are _you_ going to do to him?” It was a seething glare, hostile - the glare of a mother-bear sensing danger to her cubs.

“It is my hope to put his father’s crown upon his head,” Lord Varys said softly.

“His father never wore the crown,” the woman said, sighing, and something broke, Lord Varys saw it. She shook her head, and set her needlework in her lap. “The Stag gored the Last Dragon at the Trident…” She shook her head, and fixed her pale eyes on Lord Varys.

“Please tell me everything.”

She sighed heavily, but sat up a little straighter, and nodded. “It was Lord Dayne himself who summoned me up to Starfall one evening. It was past the hour of the wolf… And there he was, the Sword of the Morning. I had grown up at Starfall, I knew his face, though he did not wear his white cloak, only simple clothes, a brigandine and gorget - not the full armour of the Kingsguard that he wore later… His broher was in need of a midwife and wet-nurse, milord said, someone who could be trusted: I had helped deliver and nursed Lord Dayne’s son, you see… We left Starfall within the hour, on horseback, with a small company of Dayne guards; they left us as we reached the tower. Joy, the Prince had called it, and I could feel it, as I entered the tower. It was a _happy_ place; it was in the very stones and the air… It was a place of joy and great _love_ … The Princess met me in the little parlour.”

Varys waited, and the woman gave him a sad, shrewd smile.

“Princess Lyanna,” she said softly. “Lord Commander Gerold Hightower of the Kingsguard introduced her himself. I still remember her to this day. Tall and slim and queenly. Oh, she was a beauty. Not in the way of the songs and tales with their golden heroines…she had a solemn beauty, like moonlight and shadows. But it was her eyes…they were kind, and warm, in spite of her stern face. Grey eyes, dark hair to her waist, simply braided, and her gown was of fine wool, nothing spectacular, nothing a _princess_ would have worn… Her belly was big when I arrived, bigger than she should have been - she had counted the moons since she last bled, but she was carrying low, and the maester thought her time was near; they sent for a wet-nurse in preparation. It was Lord Dayne who thought of me, being a midwife as well as wet-nurse… The Princess was relieved at my arrival. Her maids were one thing, as company; I had _experience_ as a mother… I was brought to Starfall as much to give the Princess advice, for when her time came, and what to do after, as to nurse her babies if she needed me to. She was determined to nurse them herself…”

The woman sighed, shaking her head. “It was my privilege to stay at the tower of Joy in those weeks before the babies came. Prince Rhaegar had gone off to fight the Rebels, but in that little tower… It was a family. A _family_. Princess Lyanna, and her brothers, the three of them - though she was most deeply bonded with Ser Arthur Dayne. She told me once, he reminded her of her younger-brother, though they were nowhere near in age. Benjen, his name was, I still recall his face, he looked so like her… She said he wanted to be Kingsguard himself… They love each other deeply, I believe, as brother and sister, Ser Arthur and Princess Lyanna…

“A raven came, from the Trident: Ser Arthur delivered the news himself, though I could see that he had died upon hearing of his best-friend’s death… The sound of her scream will haunt me ‘til my last breath. She asked only whether her brother had dealt the killing blow; Ser Arthur confirmed it had been Robert Baratheon… Her grief started her pains… Ser Arthur never left her side, as she laboured. He stayed with her, and held her hand, and brushed her hair from her face as she silently wept and struggled… She gave birth to her daughter. Any midwife or maester will tell you, babies are not born _pretty_. But I cleaned up the babe, and she was a _beauty_ ; soft dark hair like her mother’s, and eyes so big and so blue they were like violets… They were already open, as if eager to explore everything around her, she was so animated… I placed her at her mother’s breast…when the Princess’s pains began again, we knew there to be another…the boy had not turned. Ser Arthur took the child from her mother and cradled her himself, gently rocking her as she fussed and whimpered, and she gentled and curled up against him as he kissed her soft hair. He held her mother’s hand, as I attempted to turn the other child… If the son’s birth had been like the daughter’s, the Princess might have lived… But she laboured too long…she bled, as we finally freed him. He was perfect, as his sister was, born frowning as if he wasn’t ready to face the world… I still remember the way he _smiled_ , when his sister cooed. The way she whimpered, until they were swaddled together, and they cuddled up to each other, as they had in their mother’s womb. Ser Arthur held them both, as I tended to the princess. He cried, I remember. His best-friend was dead, but he had given them _joy_ even after he was gone, in those two little babies. The Princess was bleeding… The Prince’s death, her children’s birth…it took the strength from her. She drifted, for weeks; in and out, sleeping… But the babies - they were _strong_. The little girl had bonded with Ser Arthur, perfectly content to be cuddled by him; the boy was only content when he was with his sister, else he frowned and fussed.

“When the Princess was situated in the bed, cleaned up, the babies swaddled in their cradle, the other men appeared. They witnessed the babies themselves, examined the sex of boy and girl, confirmed with Ser Arthur which had come first… Prince Rhaegar had already had the official royal documents already drawn up in preparation. The documents confirming the birth of Prince Rhaegar’s true-born children. Princess Lyanna woke long enough to sign her name on the grand, illuminated parchment, beside that of her husband… Each of the Kingsguard lent their signatures, and their seals, witnessing the children’s birth, and recording their names…

“The Princess had told me what she and Prince Rhaegar had decided to name their child. They had the names ready, for boy or girl; both were used, as it turned out. Her daughter she named Princess Aella Alarra, to honour her grandmother, and the Stark who served as lady-in-waiting to Good Queen Alysanne, her friend…and her son… Prince Aegon Torrhen, after Prince Rhaegar’s great-grandfather who died the same day he was born at the Tragedy of Summerhall, and the King-Who-Knelt, Torrhen Stark, who sacrificed his crown for his people.”

The woman sniffled, and dabbed at her eyes with her needle work.

“What happened to the document?” Lord Varys asked, and the woman smiled wryly.

“They didn’t only lose their prince at the Trident,” she said. “They lost brothers, cut down in their white cloaks… A rider was despatched, with guards. Guards wearing the sunspear sigil of House Martell.”

“Prince Doran,” Varys said softly, and the letter he had secreted from a hidden place in the bowels of the Red Keep seemed to burn in his sleeve. Grand plans gone so tragically awry.

“I imagine the documents reached Prince Doran at near enough the same time news reached him of King’s Landing,” said the woman grimly. “We heard about the Lannisters sacking the city…what happened to Prince Rhaegar’s former wife, their little babies… The Kingsguard knew that soldiers would be on their way, seeking the Princess,” she sighed, looking overwrought. Twenty-odd years was a long time to keep such secrets to herself.

“And seek her they did,” Lord Varys sighed, and the woman nodded.

“The Prince’s death, the strain of her children’s birth…I believe it was watching her brother cut down her friend who had loved and protected her that finally broke the princess,” said the woman hoarsely. “We watched the skirmish from the tower window… There were only two survivors, Lord Stark and the little crannogman… When Ser Arthur was cut down, the Princess _howled_ …I settled her into the bed, and that was where they found her, the last of her strength gone, clutching the dead petals of the roses Rhaegar had picked for her before he went off to war… She was fierce, though, fierce in her last moments - she had his promise, his _oath_ \- to protect them. She gave him the children’s names - Aegon and Aella Targaryen… I’ve never seen anyone so shocked. The Lord Stark knew, in that instant…it had been a lie, everything he had been fighting for… His sister had never been snatched and dishonoured; the Prince had wed her, and given her children his name…

“Lord Stark gathered us in the parlour. There were none left who could fight, but it seemed to me the fight had gone out of Lord Stark. He simply told us that if we breathed a word of the children’s true parentage, Robert Baratheon would not stop until he had hunted down and slaughtered them. We had heard of Princess Rhaenys and little Prince Aegon, and we had loved Princess Lyanna… Lord Stark knew he needed no threats to keep us silent. We kept the lady’s secret; we kept her babies safe. Lord Stark claimed them as his own. He kept the daughter’s name, Alarra, but changed the boy’s, for his own safety. He tore down the tower, built cairns as grave-markers for those who had died defending his sister…he carried Dawn back to Starfall, and we made our way North.

“We sailed to White Harbour, to quicken the journey to Winterfell; it took us three weeks, and I was set up in the nursery with the babies. Lord Stark’s younger brother - Benjen, the one who wanted to be Kingsguard - came and visited often, cuddling the babies, just talking to them, telling them stories about his sister… The babies were five months old when Lord Stark’s wife arrived from the Riverlands, her own newborn son at her breast. He was six weeks old, but nearly as big as the twins. They had been small, of course, sharing the womb. She took one look at them, and I swear, I knew in that moment I’d have died for it, but I would never have let her lay a hand on them…

“When she pestered me for the truth of the baby’s birth, I went to Lord Stark. He filled my coin-purse, and sent two guards to escort me home. Here, to Starfall. I’ve been here ever since, and never breathed a word of it. ‘Til you.”

She sniffed, wiped her eyes, and glared stubbornly at him.

“I hope whatever mess you’re about to drag that boy into is worth it.”

“It may yet…for _all_ of us.”

He bowed to the woman, and made his leave of the modest home with a token of his gratitude to the daughter in the form of coin, and stepped out among the hibiscus, their scent tantalising, and a warm breeze caressed his face, which was drawn into a thoughtful frown.

With surprising grace, Lord Varys mounted his horse. He draped a scarf around his head, concealing his face, and to any observer he looked like just other Dornish merchant. He was nothing if not a master of disguises and theatrics. They had served him well, for many years.

He glanced up at the stars, and gently spurred his horse into a neat trot, heading for the famous Water Gardens.

There was much he would discuss with the Prince of Dorne.

* * *

Viserion raged. He screamed, confused and wrathful, screaming and vomiting fire into the air, causing the waves crashing into the stony shore to hiss and bubble.

He had flown as if in great pain. The shard of the Night King’s ice spear had been dislodged, or melted by Viserion’s own heat, but it _had_ hurt him, and it was evident with every flap of his wings - he screamed, and whimpered, and he struggled to flap his wings together, one of them not quite unfurling properly. And yet he had been determined to keep up with Drogon. The dragon knew, to stay North was to invite his own death. Dragons were not stupid.

It was absurd, really, how quickly the dragons had flown back to the Wall. The great black one’s _ease_ carrying them all - all but Gendry, and Jon, who he had to lift off the green dragon’s back, unconscious but still breathing, his furs frozen solid.

In the time it had taken the dragons to appear, and save them, and return them to the Wall, Yaskier had only just arrived, having run flat out through the day and most of the night, and was still shuddering in the Commander’s bed, piled with furs and quilts, with good strong broth to warm him as Ser Davos tried his hardest to write a legible scroll to Daenerys Targaryen. The scroll was abandoned, and Yaskier’s soup slopped over his hand, as the three dragons landed beyond the walls of the great fortress, screaming and bellowing, Viserion belching fumes and fire.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened - then Ser Davos upset his ink-bottle in his haste to leave the room, and Yaskier suddenly found himself following, the furs and quilts abandoned - his soup bowl still cradled in his hands - and they met Karsi at the external door, her spear raised, her eyes wide in awe.

 _Dragons_.

As the great, monstrous Drogon landed on the battlements, lowering his wing so they could descend directly into the training-yard, a third dragon landed just beyond the gate, carrying two large men.

People clambered down off Drogon’s back, until finally, Ser Jorah peeled a pale, limp figure off the great beast’s steaming back. Ser Jorah carried the girl - for she had long, pale-blonde hair that looked white in the snows that drifted gently around them - hastily to the rickety stairs, pushing past them to get her to the roaring hearth as Karsi and Yaskier gaped at the _dragons_. Drogon shook himself, snarled, and took off.

Dickon stood with his hands on his knees, his legs trembling; Obara Sand leaned heavily against her obsidian spear. Lord Tarly still looked thunderstruck, his eyes wide and horrified. Tormund looked grim, and helped the Hound carry a snarling, twitching _thing_ away from the startled horses, to throw it in a deep ice-cell. A bellow came from beyond the gate, and Lord Barahir and his men reacted swiftly, unbolting the gate and prising the frozen doors apart to admit Gendry, who carried Jon over his shoulder.

“He fell through the ice!” Gendry called, carrying Long Claw in his other hand. Between them, he and Lord Barahir carried Jon inside as the white-and-gold dragon thrashed and screamed, swinging his long tail, and demolishing an outbuilding.

“We’ve got to get them warm!” Karsi declared, raising her hand to Daenerys’ brow, examining her dark-blue lips, the ice on Jon’s eyelashes, touching Jon’s frozen furs, Daenerys’ soaked coat.

“Carry them to the Commander’s chamber,” Ser Davos said. “We’ve kept the fire going in there; it’s a smaller room, it’ll heat up faster. Karsi, you tend to the Queen; Gendry, help Jon. Tormund, tell me what’s happened…”

Jon and the pale-haired girl were carried to the Commander’s chamber, where a great box bed had just been vacated by Yaskier. Another straw mattress had been dragged inside by the hearth, piled with furs and quilts; the men had taken this room, while Karsi had been adamant about staying beside the hearth with her dagger in her hand, unused to such luxuries as straw mattresses.

The girl was laid tenderly on the bed by Ser Jorah, who looked torn, even as Karsi ordered him away so she could strip the girl. He put bricks among the embers to heat, so they could be wrapped in towels and tucked between the linens and quilts and warm them, and turned to help Gendry, who was tearing Jon’s frozen furs from his body, and Yaskier appeared, to claim the clothes and hang them up before the great hearth to dry.

“There’s hot food,” Yaskier said. “The elk we hunted when we arrived; Karsi made a rich stew.”

“You go,” Gendry said, nodding to the door. “Get some soup to warm you. I’ll stay with Jon. Tell Ser Davos what’s happened.”

“You must strip and climb in beside him also,” said Karsi, and Gendry turned, startled at the sight of her nakedness; she merely climbed into the bed beside the unconscious Queen, gathering the smaller girl to her, and tucked the furs and quilts over them both, rubbing the girl’s back. “Rub his chest to warm his heart. It will warm the rest of him.”

Gendry did as he was told by the one who knew better than he ever could how to treat intense cold; he stripped off, after gathering blankets and furs and quilts, and tucked himself under their weight, inhaling sharply at the icy cold that emanated from Jon’s skin. Slowly, he warmed, and some of the others appeared, to bring firewood - parts of the outbuilding Viserion had destroyed with his tail - and mead for Gendry, who was quickly sweating and overheating under the furs and quilts.

“How’s she doing?” he asked, glancing over at Karsi.

“The cold has its claws in her, deep,” Karsi murmured, sighing, as she cuddled the queen closer, as she would any of her own children. “And Jon?”

“He’s probably just relieved to _sleep_ ,” Gendry grunted, sighing heavily, wiping the sweat from his brow, uncomfortable in the intense heat. He didn’t know Jon Snow well, but he thought he understood the King. And he was _exhausted_. And yet…and yet he kept fighting. Even as they knew they would be left behind, to give the others a chance, hopeless and exhausted, Jon had still fought, slaying every wight that attacked them… The cold had caught Daenerys worse - foolish girl, she was not dressed for true winter weather, only her fanciful dreams of what she thought winter was, not what it truly meant. Winter meant _death_ , as it always had, and Jon knew that. Every Stark and Northman knew that.

The Starks had been warning them for thousands of years. _Winter is coming_ …

What they meant was, _Death is coming_. Death. The Night King and his hordes.

When Jon was hot to the touch, and relaxed under the furs, Gendry gently touched his hand to his brow, felt him sweating, and told Karsi; she said this was a good sign, and told Gendry to go and get some cool air and some stew.

Gendry dressed, and met some of the others by the great hearth, relieved to be out of the suffocating heat of the room.

“How are they?” Dickon Tarly asked.

“Jon’s sleeping,” Gendry said, accepting a bowl of thick venison stew with a grateful smile. He had never had venison before, and couldn’t help but think of Hot Pie, and all his various recipes for venison suet-puddings and pies. Arya had talked of Winterfell, and her family: Hot Pie had talked of _food_ , and it had taken all Gendry’s patience not to bludgeon him as they trudged through the Riverlands, starving, while he talked about baking, his true passion. “I think the Queen will be alright.”

Ser Jorah sighed heavily, relieved, and he nodded.

“What’s going on out here, where is everyone?”

“Organising provisions. There were barrels of pitch left behind,” Lord Tarly said. “Food in the larders, good steel in the forge, likely recently traded for. The Watch travelled light when they abandoned the fortress. We’ve the means to transport what’s of use to Winterfell.” Gendry nodded.

“And the wight?”

“Thrown in an ice-cell, gagged and chained,” Obara said, polishing her double-ended obsidian spear. It had been tricky to make, not because obsidian was an unfamiliar material, but because it was so finicky to get the obsidian to the right temperature - he had to look for the violet flame, Lord Tyrion had told him, translating a flowery High Valyrian text.

“Yaskier’s searching the storage vaults for a suitable crate to transport it,” Lord Tarly said, finishing his stew. “Can’t have the wretched beast getting loose aboard the ship.”

“That’s the last thing we need,” Gendry agreed, rubbing his face tiredly. Karsi joined them, not long after, declaring the Queen warm and resting peacefully, her colour returned.

They sat quietly before the hearth. What was there to say? They all knew what they had seen with their own eyes. They knew what they had narrowly escaped. They realised what Jon Snow had been fighting, for years.

It was an uncomfortable thing for Lord Tarly, who scowled into the flames, second-guessing everything he had ever thought about his firstborn son, with a sinking, hot feeling that anyone else might recognise as _shame_ …

* * *

He jumped, the delicate kiss of snow startling against his sweat-slick skin, which seemed to be on fire. Through his lashes, a curtain of palest silver-gold shimmered in the fire firelight. Disoriented, he squirmed and fought against the furs and quilts burying him, his eyes bleary from exhaustion and sweat dripping into them, and the gentle kiss of cool, soft skin drifted from his brow to his throat to his chest.

“ _Shhh_ ,” someone cooed gently, and his body tensed as the delicate touch lingered on his chest…traced the curve of his wickedest scar, the one that had plunged a dagger through his heart. Breath caught in someone’s lungs, and he frowned, still half-asleep and disoriented, as the furs were pulled lower. Cooler air sighed over his sweat-slicked chest, and he felt he could breathe properly - but he clenched his jaw and shuddered, reaching out to swat at the hand, catching slender fingers tightly, as whoever it was traced their fingers over his scars. _Those_ scars. Scars they had no right to see.

He scowled up through his lashes, his eyes pained by the light, and slowly, blinking the sweat and sleep from his eyes, Jon realised… Daenerys. He blinked. Where had she come from?

And why was she naked?

She sat curled beside his hip, her legs tucked elegantly beneath her, her long hair tumbling in a thick braid over her shoulder, swaying temptingly in front of her succulent breasts as she leaned over him on one stiff arm. She had been caressing him with her other hand, now snatched in his. Unabashedly naked, she sat beside him, her skin cool against his hip where she leaned so delicately, and as Jon scowled up at her, bemused, her eyes glowed in the firelight, warm and tearful.

He woke up a little at that, frowning up, ignoring her nakedness in favour of the curious vulnerability in her eyes - a deep sense of sorrow and regret. “I didn’t believe you,” she whispered hoarsely, looking deeply upset. “You had to see it… Now I know…”

“Aye, now you now,” Jon agreed grimly, and he blinked…and his eyelids grew too heavy to lift again, and he sighed, drifting off to a sleep that was rich and deep and restful.

Hours later, Jon sighed, and woke, fully conscious all at once, his exhaustion shed like a blanket. He frowned, attempting to stretch - only to realise…there was a soft, supple body tangled beside his. Daenerys lay alongside him, her back to him, with her head on his shoulder, her hand curled delicately over his bicep, and she sighed softly as he stilled. He could see the dimples of her lower-back, the curve of her tiny waist, and her bottom, her unblemished skin glowing…her long curls whispered against his skin, glittering softly silver in the intense firelight.

How to free himself, without waking her? Carefully as he could, Jon tried to disentangle himself from her.

But she was not asleep. She sighed, and rolled over to face him, leaving her body utterly exposed to his gaze. Her eyes glowed in the firelight, and she smiled softly, reaching out to rest her hand over the scarred skin above his heart. All he could see was her eyes, her soft, earnest smile, her vicious determination as she told him, “We are going to destroy the Night King.”

 _We_. Not ‘you’. The two of them. Jon closed his eyes, not wanting to show the true depths of his relief to hear it…

He jolted, as her delicate hand dipped beneath the furs, and exhaled sharply as she reached for him. She bit her lip, her gaze intense on his lips as she stroked him.

“Daenerys,” he warned, clenching his jaw.

She rose over him, still gazing at his lips, still stroking, and whispered, “And we shall do it _together_.”

She leaned in, and Jon winced, her hand increasing pressure as she stroked, and inhaled sharply, moving his head to the side - her kiss landed delicately at the corner of his mouth, not full on his lips.

Daenerys gazed into his eyes, her hand stilling. “Your vows…” she realised, her eyes widening. Then they softened, and she leaned in again, attempting another kiss, as she smiled, “You’ve never broken them.”

He dodged her kiss, and told her bluntly, “I’ve broken them. It did not end well.”

Daenerys stared down at him. He reached for her wrist, and she glanced down between them, turned her gaze back to him, read his face. Seemed to understand.

“She died… You _loved_ her,” she said softly. Jon gave one brutal nod. He had loved Ygritte. Daenerys’ soft smile faltered, and she gave Jon a sad, almost accepting look. “And you do not love me.”

“No, I don’t,” Jon said honestly, and to her credit, the Queen did not balk or weep. Just gazed mournfully, yearningly, at him. “I can’t give you what you want.”

“I disappointed you. I lost your respect…I never had it, did I?” Daenerys asked, with a faint bitter edge to her soft laugh of realisation, her eyes glimmering with tears of understanding. “I ruined it, the day you arrived at Dragonstone.”

“You didn’t ruin it,” Jon told her softly, but his tone was grim, heavy - exhausted. She _had_ ruined it that day, with her appalling arrogance - but he didn’t want her to know she had ever had a chance at impressing him. His father had simply set the standard far too high for anyone to ever measure up.

Daenerys sniffed delicately. “Not that day, then, but…the ‘Lion Culling’. I heard people, _my_ people, on Dragonstone, that’s what they’re calling it. In the ash meadows…a lion culling… The Dragon hunted lions and snow fell in the meadows…not snow… _ash_ …” Daenerys blinked unseeingly, her eyes glimmering with tears in the firelight, her expression lax - the most open and vulnerable Jon had ever seen her. She gazed into Jon’s eyes, horror slowly swelling, “I…murdered families. Mothers and…little children with perfect golden curls… I see them in my dreams. That isn’t…” She sniffed, reached up to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “I promised to be _better_. I burned them. I came to Westeros…to _free_ people. To fight…to _save_ people…” She closed her eyes, and fresh tears tracked down her cheeks. Jon’s hand twitched to reach and wipe them away. Daenerys opened her eyes before he could, and she gave him a mournful, tremulous smile. “Now I know. All my armies…they are yours.”

Jon sighed heavily. It was all he could have ever hoped for… _But_ … “Daenerys…”

“I pledge you my armies, Your Grace,” Daenerys repeated, her tone unyielding as he knew her to be.

“You send your people North, they will die,” Jon said, propping himself up on his elbows, meeting her gaze intensely. “If not all, then most. It would mean sacrificing your war. Could you bear that?”

“How can I claim to fight for the freedom of the people of Westeros if I refuse to sacrifice my armies to protect them?” Daenerys retorted fiercely. “I came to Westeros to save its people, not to…burn children…”

“Daenerys…” She leaned over him, nipples brushing against his chest, and took his face in her hands. And Jon…could not turn his head away as she kissed him, full on the lips, slowly and sensuously. She took his hand, and cupped her breast, moaning softly as she slipped her tongue between his lips, dominating and seeking. Jon shuddered, and fought the instinct to cup and squeeze her breast, her soft skin, her hard little nipple insistent against his palm. He broke away from her kiss, from her breast. She was panting softly, her eyes heavy-lidded as if drunk from her kiss. He looked grimly into her eyes, annoyed and flustered that he was in this position, that she had invited herself into his bed, knowing exactly what she wanted - and all too well the full implications of what it would mean after. “It won’t be enough for you.”

 _Her armies…for one night with him?_ Because he knew, he would never give her what she desired. How could he? And yet, here she was, in his bed, naked and insistent, and…how did he say no? How did he say no, without risking her ire?

Without her going back on her word, taking back her oath to help him?

And if he gave in tonight, what did that mean after?

Daenerys faltered, wincing for a heartbeat, understanding with great reluctance the truth - even if she ignored or forgot it later… He did not desire her in his bed as his lover, nor did he admire her as a woman he respected, a queen he would yield to.

Daenerys dipped her head, and gave him a long, plundering kiss. Her eyes were dazed when they broke apart, and she gazed at Jon, overwhelmed with desire, “If tonight is all I shall ever have from you…then lie to me…for I cannot _bear_ the truth… Let me pretend I have not made the greatest mistake of my life in losing your respect and your trust…” Shame and regret poured from her eyes, and Jon saw it; the great illusion was shattered, the true Daenerys revealed - but far too late. Tears trickled down hr cheeks. “That I have not dishonoured all that I strive to be, that I am no better than those I would wage war on. That I am my father’s daughter.” She grimaced, squeezing her eyes together on a soft sob, and leaned forward, stealing another kiss, cradling his face in her hands, trailing her fingers down his neck. She gasped, and gazed at him tearfully. “Tonight, let me be Daenerys…who _cared_ when people were hurt…she did not _inflict it_ …”

“Shhh…” Jon sighed, and tucked her against him. The agonising truth was finally starting to sink in - far too late, he thought; but it wounded her - as well it should - but he was no heartless sadist, to enjoy watching her fracture and weep. He sighed heavily, tucking her head under his chin, and gently stroked her arm. She turned her face against his chest, cuddling close.

“How have you done it for so long?” she asked hollowly, tracing her fingertip over his scars, those scars he hated so much. The last person to touch them had been Nora, and with her he knew, he had been utterly relaxed, able to trust her. He did not trust Daenerys. He did not like her tracing his scars, or inviting herself into his bed, putting him in this position.

His honour, or her armies.

Could he save his people, without having to fuck her?

Would she remember his rejection, after the battle, when her people were decimated, and he still refused to yield the North? She was the last of a long list of people committed to fighting the dead; what right did she have more than them to claim any part of the North, to demand their fealty?

Daenerys sniffled delicately. “This _life_? All you have endured, the fighting, the wars, the…the _choices_ …the _loss_?” She gazed up at him, her eyes damp and glittering, and genuinely _seeking_. She was struggling, he could see it. And she genuinely appreciated his wisdom, in a way she rarely did her own advisors’. “How have…how have you not lost yourself?”

Jon frowned softly, “You’re not lost.”

She gave him a tremulous smile, finally sitting up, to lean over him, gentle and unaccountably sweet. “You reminded me who I am.” She gave him a tender kiss on his lips. “I wish…the girl I was before is the one you met on Dragonstone. You would have liked her…respected her, even… Perhaps you would have desired her, even loved her. I was proud of her.” She gazed at Jon, as if awed. “She would not have believed a person like you even existed…couldn’t possibly be real…” Her hands gentle on his shoulders, she straddled him.

“Daenerys -“ he warned, as she reached between them, and guided him into her body.

“ _Jon_ ,” she sighed, and he inhaled sharply as she rolled her hips, taking him deeper. He shuddered at the feel of her, slick and hot and silky soft, and she placed his calloused palms over her breasts as she had before, dipping her head to snare a deep, savouring kiss. He groaned, and squeezed her breasts tenderly, shoving down his uncertainty, his dread, to play with her nipples, breaking their kiss - too intimate, he thought, far too intimate - to nip and suckle her nipples, as she rode him.

She draped her arms over his shoulders, tangling her fingers in his hair, tugging, to force his face to hers and kiss him. He clapped his hands down on her hips, grasping her backside, and Daenerys gasped as Jon grabbed her and thrust up, hard, as she rolled her hips down. She threw back her head and moaned.

She rode Jon, hard, demanding everything from him, and he met her fiercely. She raked her fingernails down his chest as she rode him, catching on his scars; Jon growled, and slapped his hands on her backside in warning, thrusting hard into her, and snatched her hands, pinning her arms behind her back, clasping both wrists in his hand. She writhed, and whipped her hips back and forth, and thrust her breasts out, whimpering softly. He kissed and sucked her nipples as he pounded into her, and with his free hand he sought between her quivering thighs.

“Are you going to behave?” he growled breathlessly, nipping her shoulder, her throat, and Daenerys gasped, nodding eagerly, her eyes alight with ecstasy. She slowed the pace of her hips, and Jon sighed, giving in, just for this moment, releasing her hands, to trail his own from her breasts to her waist - and flipped her off him, onto her back.

Arms stiff above her, he thrust into her with a deep groan, making her gasp and shudder with delight, and Daenerys wriggled and writhed beneath him, and spread her thighs wide for him, moaning with every deep thrust, her lower-lip trembling as she clutched at him, his muscles bulging, and he rode her, until she was breathless and shaking, and he pushed up, to kneel before her, and took her hips in his broad, calloused hands, and thrust up into her, his thumb delicately teasing her, and she cupped her aching breasts and moaned with abandon, thrusting her hips to meet his, the firelight swimming in her eyes as he pushed her body, taking her ruthlessly, until she knew nothing but _him_ inside of her, and the intense pleasure burning through her. She panted, and moaned deliciously, smiling breathlessly as he continued to thrust inside her, gentler now, almost as if soothing her descent.

His face drawn, his gleaming muscles rippling, Daenerys knew - and he…pulled out - tried to - she locked her legs around his waist, shoving her hands above her to brace against the headboard, grinding her hips hard against his, locking her thighs on him.

He warned, scowling, even as he thrust and clenched his jaw, “Daenerys, I’m going to -“

“Don’t pull out! I want _all_ of you!” she cried out, fingernails digging into his skin as she gripped his backside, thighs locked around him, and for a moment, he looked agonised, still thrusting, as if he knew he should stop himself, and could not bear to. She thrust to meet him, and moaned, and shook her head. “You _can’t_ get me pregnant - I’m - “

She gasped as he gave one last, brutal thrust, his head thrown back, his chiselled chest gleaming, every muscle tensed, rippling, and he grunted, panting, gentling his weight on her, stilling inside her.

For a second, he looked stunned - then utterly relaxed, and then…shocked, guilty… And so much _younger_ than she had imagined he was. He was always so grim and serious; but he was a _young_ man.

He pulled out of her with a shaky, stifled groan, and Daenerys lolled, luxuriating in her pleasure, her body throbbing deliciously, aching from him, as he slumped against the furs, panting. She saw his hand shake as he reached up to push his dark curls out of his face. His slender, muscled body was heaving as he panted, a thin film of sweat coaxing her to lick him from his head to his toes, if she could but find the energy to lavish on him as he deserved. She could still feel him inside her - she would feel him for days, she knew. She was slick between her thighs, from her pleasure, and his seed, and she preened, delighting in the feel of it, the ache, the delicious slick heat burning through her.

“I shouldn’t have spent inside you,” he said hollowly. She managed to push herself up onto her elbows, and smiled as she lifted a foot to gently poke his thigh. She smiled warmly at him, though she felt the cut deep in her heart the same this time as she had every other, admitting the truth.

“I can’t have children,” she said softly. Her son had been pulled from her, monstrous and deformed, and dead.

‘ _When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child_ … _Then he will return, and not before_.’ Hateful words, from the woman who had taken her sun and stars from her, and murdered their child growing in her belly… A cunning, vengeful woman - Daenerys was glad she was dead. With her sun and stars, the witch was the first she had burned…

And now Daenerys burned small children.

She raised a hand to her head, suddenly overwhelmed, bristling with shock at her own thoughts.

“How do you know that?” he asked quietly.

“It was…prophesied, by the witch who murdered my husband and our unborn son… You don’t look convinced.”

Jon scowled, spitting the words, “I don’t put any stock in prophecies.”

“You are not my first lover since my sun and stars was taken from me,” Daenerys admitted, almost bashfully. She had never been ashamed of her appetites, the gods knew Drogo had ruined her for other men, but… Jon was so different. His opinion of her _mattered_. And she was struggling to show him the true Daenerys, the one she wanted him to know, not the one the world was coming to dread. “And in all the years since… I am barren. My dragons are the only children I shall ever have.” Silence descended on the room as Jon frowned at her, but for the flickering fire; and beyond the sweating stone walls, they could hear them. One of the dragons, screaming. “One of my sons is out there, crying…”

“Viserion was hurt,” Jon told her. Daenerys blinked, and her hands shook as she raised them to her head, caressing her long braids as if for strength.

“Lord Tyrion warned me, I keep…they keep getting hurt because of me,” she whispered hoarsely, staring at Jon in horror.

Jon frowned. “Why did you come North?”

Daenerys gulped, dread coursing through her at the memories, true fear gripping her tight. “Rhaegal flew off… Drogon and Viserion followed. I was on Drogon’s back, I - I convinced myself that I can control them,” she said wonderingly, staring at Jon in growing realisation. “I commanded the destruction at the ash meadow…but that day, flying above Dragonstone…our flight here through the storms… It was like they had forgotten I was there…or didn’t care. They are my children, and yet they are their own masters.” She frowned thoughtfully at Jon. “They…followed some intuition, perhaps. They knew you needed them.”

“I’m glad they came,” Jon said earnestly. He gave Daenerys a chiding look. “But _you_ need proper furs if you’re going to be flying about in all weathers.”

“You’re always so sensible,” Daenerys said, her tone gentle, fond. “Tell me you were successful, at least. Did you capture a wight? I can’t quite recall what truly happened, only…the sea…” She frowned at him. “The sea of the dead.”

“We captured one. Last time I woke, Gendry said they’d loaded the wight onto the ship,” Jon said, frowning to himself. He sighed, glancing around the chamber. Their clothes had been brought in, folded onto chairs at the end of the great bed. “We had better hasten to King’s Landing. I don’t know how long it’ll last…whether the magic of the Wall will somehow affect the Night King’s influence over it…”

“Surely you don’t intend to leave now?” Daenerys blurted, startled.

“We need to leave here as soon as possible,” Jon said, climbing out of the nest of furs and quilts, reaching for his small-clothes and leather trousers, climbing into them, as Daenerys gaped. “I dislike that the Night King…seemed to be waiting for us. I just hope that bringing the wight beyond the Wall has not…has not compromised the spells that keep the Wall standing.”

“You think the Wall may be corrupted?”

“I think that it’s _corruptible_ ,” Jon said darkly, frowning, after a moment’s thought. “It was made; it can be unmade. And the Others have had thousands of years to work out how to bring it down. I need to get to King’s Landing as soon as possible; I need to get _home_ as soon as possible.”

Daenerys stared at him from the furs, bare-breasted, hair tousled from their tumble, and stunned - that he did not wish to luxuriate in the furs with her, most likely. That he was so…sensible, so _unaffected_ by what had just happened.

Jon wasn’t; he was shivering with shame, as he tugged on his shirts, the ones Sansa had sewn for him.

He had fucked Daenerys, knowing she had wanted it more than anything: He had fucked her, in spite of his own dread, the warnings inside his own mind that…he had no choice.

He could not give her what she wanted in the long-term, which was _everything_ : Nor could he deny her that which she had wanted from him just now.

He could not give her what she wanted: And yet he _had_ to give her what she had needed from him in that moment.

Or…or she would have become the brittle woman he already knew, who burned women and children and destroyed entire armies without a second thought… But it wouldn’t be the army of the dead she warred against; it would be him. His people. Winterfell. The North.

So he’d fucked her, knowing she’d wanted it for ages, knowing that it didn’t matter what he wanted; it was for the good of the North. He couldn’t say no, when denying her might mean their deaths.

He dressed, quickly, his back to her, clenching his jaw and trying not to show that he was shuddering with shame. He did not want her: He knew no way out.

He couldn’t save the North _and_ deny her this one small thing.

What was a quick tumble in the furs, even if shame had consumed him in the act, compared to the lives of hundreds of thousands of his people?

She’d taken what she wanted. He’d given it to her, because the alternative - denying her - was so much more dangerous.

He was still dressing as he left the Commander’s chamber, his hands shaking, and stopped short at the sight of Gendry, who had been reaching for the door-handle.

“Jon, you’re - ” He broke off, frowning at Jon, and his eyes slid beyond Jon, over his shoulder, into the room, to Daenerys, flushed and bare-breasted in the furs laid out for Jon.

He reached past Jon, grabbing the door-handle, and tugged it closed tight behind Jon - who was shocked to see a dark scowl on Gendry’s usually cheerful face, a dangerous look the Queen undoubtedly had seen.

Gendry eyed Jon shrewdly. “Thousands of the dead descending on us, your hand never shook once,” he observed, as Jon pushed his curls out of his face, feeling…haggard, exhausted. Jon raised his eyes to the other man’s face, and Gendry let out a deep sigh, frowning at the closed door.

“She’s committed her armies to fighting the dead.”

“Mm,” Gendry grunted thoughtfully, his vivid eyes narrowing. There was no accusation or humour in Gendry’s face, or his voice, when he said, “And was fucking her part of that arrangement?”

Jon grimaced, rubbing his hands over his face. “If I didn’t -“

He broke off, flushing hotly. But Gendry just stared back at him, his expression even. Almost _knowing_.

“If you didn’t, what?” he prompted gently.

“We _need_ her armies,” Jon said, almost pleadingly, and Gendry nodded. He sighed heavily, giving the door a scornful look that might have blistered any varnish off it.

“She didn’t get where she is by thinking about other people,” Gendry frowned. “She’s here because she took what she wanted, everyone else be damned.”

“Or burned,” Jon corrected.

“Jon…she doesn’t get to just have whatever she wants,” Gendry said quietly.

“If I don’t -“

“If you don’t, and she goes back on her word, that’s entirely _her_ doing,” Gendry said, his voice sombre but gentle. There was a wisdom in his voice, which was deep and rumbling - yet he was _young_. Younger than Jon. There was a grit to him that Jon recognised: He had not had an easy life, at all. “What is it you’re truly afraid of?”

Jon stared at him.

“I’m afraid that if we win this war against the Night King, she’ll feel entitled to the North. And when I refuse to yield it, she’ll set loose those beasts of hers,” Jon said. “She’ll slaughter my people. She’ll murder my family.”

“Fucking her won’t change that,” Gendry said bluntly. “You already know deep down what she’s capable of… No matter what you do, what you give her, she’ll do whatever she wants.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I saw how she was with people at Dragonstone. She’s a bully. She likes picking on people she thinks are less than she is. I’ve seen it my whole life.”

“So what do I do?”

“Two things I know. It’s not _you_ who should be feeling ashamed. And the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm... Did Jon consent?  
> There’s a difference between a dominant partner and a sexual predator.  
> Precarious situation our boy’s in there. And I purposely wrote it that way: Jon’s very conscious of the repercussions his actions may have, either way, if he rejects her outright or sleeps with her only once. But they’re in no way in love - or at least, Jon is not in love with Daenerys.  
> I enjoy developing this bromance between Jon and Gendry. And I can’t not hear Henry Cavill’s Geralt-voice while he’s speaking these lines in my head! When I was writing that snuggle scene, I had two thoughts: That would make one delicious sandwich to be in the middle of… And, Damn, Jon and Gendry together would be unnnnhhh! Hot.


	32. Lion Cubs in the Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s a small thing, but I’m getting rid of Larra’s freckles.
> 
> Also, I was watching The Princess Bride and was overwhelmed by the story of Inigo Montoya, and how the actor’s portrayal of that famous scene with the man with six fingers, “I want my father back, you son of a bitch” was Mandy Patinkin getting revenge on the cancer that killed his own father. And I thought…a skilled swordsman fuelled by vengeance, desperate to avenge their father’s death…an elegant, stoic princess…a hero who is tormented and returns from being ‘mostly’ dead…the Strong Man…the tiny mastermind… The Princess Bride is so good it even transcends into other worlds…

**Valyrian Steel**

_32_

_Lion Cubs in the Snow_

* * *

“We should prepare the nursery.”

Larra choked on her tea.

She turned wide eyes on Sansa, cold fear gripping her marrow.

Sansa merely raised an eyebrow at her, only mildly affronted.

“Don’t look at _me_. I cherish every moon-flower that reminds me nothing festers in my womb,” Sansa said, almost tartly, turning back to her sewing, and Larra slumped back against the settle, her heart pounding painfully inside her chest, for a second gripped with sheer terror.

“Well, it’s not likely to be _me_ ,” Larra said, frowning. Her last tumble had been far too long ago, though she remembered every lingering touch and deep thrust… She glanced at Bran. “Is there something _you_ need to confess, little brother?”

“We shall have visitors,” Bran said softly, his eyes sparkling as he gazed at Larra.

“And you just thought you’d try and frighten the life out of me,” Larra frowned.

“Your reaction was wonderful.”

“Smart-arse. That was cruel.”

“It was. I am sorry,” Bran said, his eyes drifting from Larra to Sansa.

They had approached the vicinity of the subject only once, Sansa’s… _marriage_ …when Larra had confessed she had not bled in years first due to the stress she had been under, then due to her skinniness. Her body could barely sustain her own life, let alone another. In the last few months, because the gods were cruel, she had started to bleed again, though irregularly, as she continued to put on weight.

As if she wasn’t riddled with enough pain, anger and discomfort already.

Larra knew that if that… _monster_ had left Sansa with a child, she would have given birth to it a long while ago - during her time with Jon reuniting the Northmen under the Stark banner.

But, like Larra, the stress of Sansa’s circumstances - her near-nightly torture at her husband’s hands - had given her the smallest of blessings: Sansa’s moon-blood had stopped coming. She had not become pregnant. He who exalted in and cherished violence, mutilation and death could not force _life_ on Sansa, no matter what else he did to her. No life; no child. His seed had not quickened in her womb, forcing her to bring forth his offspring into the world.

Sansa had told Larra quietly that she could not imagine anything worse than being a mother to a child forced upon her by that creature - to never be able to love it, to dread its embrace as she dreaded its father, to taste the nausea and grow cold, gripped by terror, at its smile. To be a prisoner in her own home, abused…to be locked away from herself inside of her own mind, forever…to spend her entire life enslaved by her hate toward and fear of her own child…

“ _When I have children, I shall have them by a man who is brave and gentle and strong_ ,” Sansa had told her, that quiet evening by the fireside. _When_ , Sansa had said. Not _if_. That gave Larra hope that her sister was not broken by what had been done to her; it gave her hope that Sansa had not been so brutalised that there was no hope for her recovery, for her to live a life of her choosing, one that brought her contentment and joy - a life that was not dictated by the horrors she had survived, but one she designed for herself.

That Sansa could even think of such an occurrence - having children by a man who was worthy of her - was a tremendous milestone in her healing. Sansa had blushed demurely, lowering her eyes to her sewing.

No, Sansa was the farthest thing from broken. She kept herself guarded, though - not just physically, with her intricate leather belts and her standoffish nature - but emotionally: it was Larra herself who had coaxed Sansa into being intimate with another person - because Sansa had recognised the need in Larra for emotional intimacy. For _compassion_.

Larra, well…she wondered whether there was anyone in the world worthy of Sansa.

She did not think that just as a sister, but as someone who marvelled at Sansa’s strength of character, her grit and her sophistication.

“Why must we make ready the nursery?” Larra asked, frowning over at Bran, who was sifting idly through raven-scrolls in his lap, dark eyes glittering as he read some and crumpled others in his fist. “The castle is filling to the rafters with little children, why are these so special?”

“They are the first wards of the King in the North in three centuries,” Bran said softly. “The entirety of Westeros will be watching them.”

“Jon has taken on _wards_?” Larra blinked at him, glancing over at Sansa, who looked flummoxed. “We prepare for war and he takes on _wards_ \- why?!”

“For the girls,” Bran said softly, and Larra frowned, wondering _which_ girls he meant. There were so many vulnerable little girls, after all. The last of the Lannisters; the little rosebuds that were missed during the Uprooting of Highgarden; even Ladies Karstark and Mormont. “None of this is their fault… We should prepare the schoolroom, too.” He glanced at Larra, with a ghost of a smile glittering in his eyes. “You will be far more suited to teaching them than anyone else. Maester Luwin crafted the most extraordinary, comprehensive curriculum for inspiring young children to become excited in their learning. And they will love your games and toys and your stories as much as Rickon and I did…maybe even more; they will truly appreciate them, after comparing their time with you to their education under their septas.”

“Septas should confine themselves to elocution, dancing and embroidery - and their _gods_ , of course,” Larra sniffed scornfully; she had never had any patience for the Seven and all their ridiculous rules, and even less patience for Septa Mordane prattling on about her gods, filling her sister’s head (Arya was as resistant as Larra) with nonsense about songs and prayer and seven-sided crystals and incense and books written by _men_ having anything to do with living in a way that honoured the gods.

To live well by oneself and others was a simple thing, needing no such embellishments.

At least, in Larra’s opinion: Maester Luwin had raised her with a healthy scepticism for all forms of worship, even the worship of the written word, which could never be taken out of context or relied on utterly, but with that scepticism, he had instilled in her a respect for others’ beliefs. Larra’s disgust of the Faith did not come from the religion itself, but from her disdain for the only person she knew to follow the Faith and call herself a godly woman - Lady Catelyn. And yet her treatment of Larra and Jon was far from the teachings of the Book of the Mother, who taught compassion, love, tenderness and guided all who would live by her example to protect the innocent as if each was their own child.

“Otherwise they’ve no place in the schoolroom. Let the maesters teach arithmetic, history, geography, philosophy, agriculture or strategy; it’s what they have devoted their lives to studying,” Larra added.

“Septa Mordane was very good to us,” Sansa said softly.

“To _you_ ,” Larra corrected, with a smirk. “You, she adored. You were ideal, the image of what a lovely young lady should be. Arya and I - we were the terrors of what she had the nerve to call a _school_ room.”

“Do you know how often Septa Mordane used to tell me, ‘your sister Larra always persevered’, ‘your sister Larra had her own struggles’,” Sansa said, smiling.

“And you replied, ‘my _half_ -sister Larra’,” Larra smirked, and Sansa rolled her eyes, though she blushed, because they both know it was true. Sansa had always made sure to make the distinction - to _correct_ others on their mistake. “Alright, well, how many of these wards are we to expect?”

Bran thought for a moment. “Eleven. Seven in one chamber, five in another, and one shall stay with his parents.”

“That’s thirteen, Bran,” Larra said gently, her lips twitching toward a smile. His arithmetic lessons had been cut brutally short.

“Three shall join Little Jon and Ragnar.”

“Seven,” Larra mused, glancing at Sansa, understanding that Bran wasn’t going to mention the thirteenth child he had counted. “Those will be the last of the Lannisters.”

“Why on earth is Jon bringing them _here_?” Sansa asked, wide-eyed, pausing in her writing.

“The closer they are to danger, the farther they are from harm,” Larra said, shrugging. “The dead can only kill them. What would the two Queens do, fighting over them?” She sighed, gazing at Sansa. “They will give the North political leverage - provided we _live_ , of course.”

Sansa frowned thoughtfully. “That will be Lord Tyrion’s doing.”

“You think so?”

“Jon would never take little girls as hostages,” Sansa said firmly. “He’s far too honourable to even think of the advantages they could give us.”

“They’re only useful as leverage if they have value,” Larra said, with a delicate wince. It was a horrible thing to say, but it was true; and the Dragon Queen had burned anyone who had ever thought them precious.

“Then we know Lord Tyrion places value in them - or at least, he recognises his duty to them as one of their last remaining relatives,” Sansa said softly. She sighed, frowning. “But why send them to Winterfell, _knowing_ they would be leverage later on… Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Lord Tyrion never did anything for no reason,” Sansa said. “He knows exactly what he is doing, he will have thought through every permutation of how this plays out, assuming we win this war against the dead… He has weighed his options, and has chosen to send the last of the Lannisters away to the North. Where neither his sister nor his Queen can get to them.”

“Tyrion was never an idiot,” Larra said. “And it says a lot that he does not trust his Queen with his kin. After the Ash Meadow and the Lion Culling, what do you imagine he is thinking about her?”

“Nothing very flattering,” Sansa said. “He’s seen far too many poor rulers not to recognise Daenerys Targaryen as one.”

“She’s just murdered his entire House to ensure his loyalty and _undivided attention_ ,” Larra said, crinkling her nose as she mimicked the Queen. _Auntie_ , she thought, with a foul scowl and a shudder of suppressed anger. She was everything her father had been; she disgraced Rhaegar’s true legacy. “What does he do next?”

“What he’s best at,” Sansa said, with a smile that bordered on adoring. “Undermine her at every turn - without making her aware of what he’s doing, if he wants to survive; but if he gets too caught up in the game, he may take pleasure in it.”

“Do you think he’ll get caught up in the game?” Larra asked.

Sansa sighed, frowning thoughtfully. “If she was more like Joffrey, relishing cruelty and indulging in her every whim for it gleefully, then, yes. But Joffrey was stupid; Queen Daenerys is self-righteous, and that is far more dangerous. She believes in herself absolutely, to the detriment of everything around her because she refuses to listen… I think Lord Tyrion has been shocked out of his wrathful grief at being betrayed by his family, by the Dragon Queen burning his entire House, down to almost the last child. The desire to annihilate his family and the reality of the wholesale slaughter of his House are two very different things - not least because the ones he had truly wished to punish are the only ones left alive… And Lord Tyrion is, in his heart, a _good_ man. He will carry his family’s deaths with him for the rest of his life, knowing they died because she wanted to make an example of them to him, of her _power_ over him.”

“And so he sends the last of the Lannisters to the North. To the one kingdom in Westeros that has declared its independence and consolidated its strength,” Larra mused. “The ones preparing for _war_ against an undefeatable enemy. Giant wights and Night Kings or dragons, it makes little difference.”

Sansa frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“Say we do, _somehow_ , by the grace of whatever gods there may be, and by our own efforts, manage to defeat the Night King and his hordes… What next? What if Daenerys Targaryen takes King’s Landing, kills Cersei, subdues the other Lords, and continues to burn her way through Westeros, only to end up _here_ , in the far North…and here’s a castle that has undergone intense fortification, and a people hardened by a fight for their lives the like of which can never be imagined - and who will fight again to preserve their freedom,” Larra said, and Bran turned his face to hers, glowing in the firelight, his dark eyes twinkling thoughtfully. “After what we shall face, three dragons will seem like child’s play.”

“Only a Targaryen would link _dragons_ in the same sentence as _child’s play_ ,” Sansa said, her lips twitching, the closest she had come to _teasing_ Larra about the horrible truth since Larra revealed it.

Larra crinkled her nose. “And there’s another point…what happens when Daenerys Targaryen discovers her brother’s children _live_ \- with a far greater claim to the Iron Throne. Do you think she will content herself to let Jon live, sitting on the Northern throne?”

“No,” Sansa said, sniffing delicately. “I don’t. I don’t believe for a moment she would let anyone stand in the way of her getting what she wants. And she wants the _Seven_ Kingdoms. Jon has already _earned_ one, where she has been wholly rejected by Westeros so far. That wounds her pride now, let alone discovering that Jon has the only legitimate claim to the Iron Throne - and always has.” Sansa blinked dazedly at the last comment. _Jon has always_ had the only true claim to the Iron Throne. Sansa stared at Larra.

“He was born a king,” Bran said softly. Larra gazed at him.

“Was he?”

“First Rhaegar was killed at the Trident…Aerys and your half-brother Aegon were killed in King’s Landing days later,” Bran said softly, his face a little pinched - as if remembering the horror; because he could _see_ it. “Aerys, Rhaegar, Aegon, all dead…and then you were born. Aella Alarra first, with Aegon Torrhen coming later. Our Larra. Our Jon. The line of succession had been wiped out, but for Prince Viserys on Dragonstone, Rhaegar’s seven-year-old younger-brother. With Jon’s birth he was Aerys’ direct successor through Rhaegar. He was King the moment he was born.”

Larra gazed gloomily at Bran. She hated the reminder that discovering her true parentage had _given_ her nothing; only _taken_ what she had never even had. Mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, uncle, aunt… That same aunt had now invaded Westeros, intending on claiming it for herself and subduing any who dared oppose her conquest.

“Torrhen,” Sansa murmured. “Jon’s name…it was Torrhen?”

“Aegon Torrhen. Uniting two ancient Kings,” Bran said, his smile soft and dreamy. He sighed, gazing into the fire. “The Conqueror always respected Torrhen. He did what Aegon could not and kept the Northmen in line. And though he was named the King-Who-Knelt, Torrhen never lost the respect of his bannermen. Torrhen was a hard man who understood that a man who kneels may yet rise again, blade in hand.”

“Well, it only took three centuries, but here we are,” Larra said, feeling suddenly exhausted, as if she had lived every moment of those three centuries.

“Torrhen,” Sansa murmured again, frowning. “I don’t think I could ever call Jon that.”

“Don’t; it’s not his name,” Larra said softly. “He’s _Jon_.”

“Until he’s not,” Sansa said, with a sigh. “We have to think carefully about the inevitability of people discovering your true parentage.”

“Who’s going to tell anyone?” Larra frowned. She sighed. “There are only five people who know the truth - three of them are in this room; the fourth will be hidden among the marshes of the Neck by now; and the fifth ranges beyond the Wall and kept the secret as long as Father did.”

“No,” Bran said softly, and Larra’s heart seized. _Meera_ … _Uncle Benjen_ … “We are not alone in knowing the truth. Not all who witnessed your birth died at the tower Rhaegar named Joy… A spider has been twitching threads on his sticky-web, long ignored…but not forgotten.”

“Spider… Lord Varys, you mean,” Sansa said, with a slightly scornful frown. “The Master of Whisperers.”

“And the most effective since Lord Bloodraven,” Bran murmured, and Larra sighed, staring into her earthenware mug of steaming, fragrant tea. Lord Bloodraven… She had far too many ghosts, Larra realised. Lyanna, Rhaegar, Rhaenys, Aegon, Rhaella, Brandon, Rickard, Father, Robb, Rickon and Osha, Maester Luwin, Brynden Rivers the Bloodraven, Leif and the Children, Jojen and Hodor and Mikken and Ser Rodrik and all the rest… People she had known and loved, and people she had never met, whose lost love she grieved for…

“He knows, then,” Sansa was saying to Bran, who nodded slowly.

“He does not yet know that Larra lives,” Bran answered softly. “Only that Jon thrives in the North. He has learned the truth of their birth from Wylla, their first wet-nurse. Soon he shall discover documents declaring their birth official…that they are legitimate…soon, all of Westeros shall know that Rhaegar and Lyanna wed on the Isle of Faces…that Rhaegar and Elia were officially separated, intending for Elia to retire to the Water Gardens for her health, while the Dornish gave their strength to Rhaegar in a coup to enforce a regency on his father’s rule, along with Northern support through his marriage to Lyanna… Soon, Westeros shall know that the only true heirs to the Iron Throne are Rhaegar’s surviving children by Lyanna Stark, secreted away by her brother Lord Eddard, who was every bit as honourable as people believed.”

“So the Spider has his eyes on Jon,” Sansa frowned.

“He is disillusioned with Daenerys Targaryen; this is how he would supplant her,” Larra said, with a heavy sigh. “Using Jon.”

“He has seen Jon’s true quality,” Bran said softly. “He has observed Jon long enough to be able to compare his leadership with that of Daenerys Targaryen’s…and to find her wanting.”

“But he still supports her?” Sansa frowned.

“He is _adaptable_ ,” Bran said thoughtfully, watching the flames flicker. “Lord Varys will use who he must and act in whatever way he must to secure the safety and prosperity of the Seven Kingdoms and _all_ its peoples. He supports no single person, but uses them for his endgame.”

“And he’s decided he can just _use_ Jon to get whatever it is he wants? Without Jon’s knowledge or consent?” Larra scowled.

“No-one Lord Varys uses ever gives their consent,” Sansa sighed softly. “They never _know_ they’re being used _to_ give their consent.”

Larra winced. “People cannot discover the truth before Jon learns it.”

Bran sighed softly. “Someone has made allusions to the circumstances of your birth,” he said softly, glancing at Larra.

“ _Who_?!”

“The Queen of Thorns,” Bran murmured, and Sansa pulled a face, almost smirking.

“And what did she have to say about it?”

“Just that the timing of everything was highly suspect. They discussed it long enough - and bluntly enough - that Jon is left wondering… When the time comes, he will be ready to accept the truth - however horrifying the ramifications may be,” Bran sighed, gazing into the distance, a soft frown drawing his features. Larra watched, as he reached down to grip the polished rims of the wheels of his chair, guiding himself around, and, with some effort, pushed himself forward to the great working-desk. He glanced up, and saw Larra, who was smiling radiantly. “What?”

“That’s the first time you’ve ever done that,” she said softly. “Wheeled yourself around.”

The first time he had taken agency over his own movement since his fall. Hodor and Larra had carried him past the Wall and back: Now, he had that clever wheeled chair. For the first few months, he had been content to let others wheel him about. Now…

He did it himself. No longer just allowed others to push him around, but actively engaging in his surroundings and how to navigate them - as if he was truly _here_ , not just a shell that resembled Bran, filled with memory out of context. This was _Bran_ , her stubborn, impish, curious little brother.

And he was learning how to be independent once more, for the first time since his fall.

The Three-Eyed Raven teaching him to fly had not freed him; Maester Wolkan’s wonderful chair had. It had given him _independence_.

The fact that _Bran_ was choosing to move about the solar, and going about it himself, was an extraordinary thing to witness - for the girl who had been with him since he had woken, frail and broken and frustrated and deeply wounded, upset, the life he had imagined for himself stripped from him with one stumble…

Bran gazed at her, and for a second, as the firelight flickered, Larra imagined it was ten-year-old Bran gazing through the mask of his older face, dimpled and sweet, his dark eyes dancing - modest pride radiating from him, as it had when they finally buckled him into Lord Tyrion’s marvellous saddle.

He still needed help moving Sansa’s chair from behind the desk; Larra rose to carry it out of the way, so that Bran could adjust his wheeled chair behind the desk, tucked close, and his dark eyes scanned the papers and parchment and books stacked on the great table. Moved by his sweet little smile, the glimpse of Bran beneath the mask, Larra reached out to trail her fingers through his inky dark hair, and leaned in to give his brow a tender kiss. She heard him sigh softly, and he had his eyes closed, his expression almost wistful, when she withdrew from him. He blinked, and rustled some papers; then he lifted a neat scrap - a raven-scroll - pinned it down with weights, and eyed Sansa’s ink-well and the earthenware pot of new quills waiting to be used.

“And what are you doing?” Sansa asked, gazing at Bran with a slight frown, as he reached for a quill.

“It is one thing to know that there _is_ evidence; it is another thing entirely to navigate a snake-pit to find it,” Bran murmured. “And Prince Doran, though less notorious than Lord Varys, is no less cunning. He has his own endgame… I intend to help them see that they may serve each other’s purposes well.”

“What are you going to do?” Larra asked darkly.

“What should have been done decades ago,” Bran sighed, dipping the quill into the ink-well. “Rhaegar failed because he cared too much what others thought of his actions, however necessary they were. Nor did he wish for others to be punished and blamed for what he was about to do, should his father learn of it prematurely… The coup to install a regent never occurred because Rhaegar kept everything too covert. He did not trust the Spider to want the same things he did…”

“And if he had trusted the Spider?”

“The last twenty-five years would have been rewritten,” Bran said simply. He sighed, frowned, and gazed down at the raven-scroll, quill hovering inches above it. Unsure what to write, perhaps - or unfamiliar with the feel of a quill in his hand, after so many years. He raised his gaze to Larra. “I think you and Sansa should go and make ready the chambers for the children - and their carers. They will be here in three days’ time.”

“Carers?”

“Escorting them are Lord Tyrion’s companion, Tisseia, a Lhazareen _khaleen_ of the Dothraki named Zharanni, and Nymeria Sand, ostensibly as an envoy of Daenerys Targaryen,” Bran said.

“But not in fact,” Sansa said.

“’Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken’,” Larra said, with a delicate smirk. “The Dornish serve the Dornish… I hear tell the Sandsnakes are more dangerous even than their father was… Still, we shall have an envoy from the Water Gardens at Winterfell. That will be beneficial later.”

“Anyone else?” Sansa asked, glancing at Bran.

“Two septas and three maids accompany the Lannisters. Each of the Lannisters has been assigned their own bloodrider to protect them - and an Unsullied soldier, to keep the bloodrider in check lest they are tempted to give in to their culture,” Bran said, and Sansa scowled.

“Strange the Queen felt the need to protect the girls from their assigned protectors,” Larra sniffed, frowning.

“Where are they coming from? The Kingsroad?” Sansa asked.

“They sailed from Dragonstone to White Harbour,” Bran said softly.

“And before that, they journeyed from Casterly Rock toward King’s Landing, and were diverted to Dragonstone,” Larra sighed, shaking her head. “All that within, what, two months? They’ll be exhausted.”

“Did Lord Manderly host them?” Sansa asked Bran, who nodded.

“Yes. Lord Manderly increased their escort, and sends more provisions, including another shipment of obsidian, and half his men. But the smallfolk remain at the harbour city, to lessen the strain on Winterfell’s resources and to man the Northern fleet. They may yet be called upon to ferry the last of the Northmen from the mainland,” Bran said gently.

“And where would they sail to?” Larra asked, frowning. “Skagos? The Free Cities? Wherever they flee, the Night King will follow.”

“Unless he falls.”

Larra smiled sadly, “Winterfell may yet be the place where winter fell?”

“Perhaps…”

Larra and Sansa spent the next day preparing chambers for another influx of guests. Wards of Winterfell, seven of them would be, and southerners who had never experienced snow, let alone true winter. Like Bran, they had all been born in the Long Summer; they had never known anything else. Larra insisted that the seven Lannisters share a chamber - and she chose Brandon’s old chamber, wood-panelled for extra warmth, with a good sized hearth, little windows and easy access to the nursery and their former schoolroom - and Larra’s chamber down the corridor. They tucked a second large bed in beside Brandon’s old one - the girls could fit three to a bed easily - and a small cot for the youngest child.

Rickon’s bedroom had already been rearranged for Little Jon and Ragnar, who were thick as thieves and did not seem to appreciate that their little haven away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the castle - and Larra’s eagle eyes - was being violated by the addition of new children. A second bed was tucked into Rickon’s room, beside the larger one Rickon used to somehow go missing in - as she helped the maids tuck fresh linens over the bed, Larra couldn’t help but remember how she spent several hours one morning desperately searching the castle for Rickon - who had managed to tuck himself along the bottom edge of the bed beneath the sheets and quilts and furs where he went unnoticed, sleeping away peacefully.

She squashed the memory trying to poke at her mind, the one of Rickon’s statue in the crypt - the statue of an adolescent young man, no longer the little boy of her memory.

In Larra’s chamber, where Maester Wolkan had had the trunks filled with Larra’s progresses sent, as she had requested, Sansa sat on Larra’s bed, while Larra rocked gently in her chair beneath the window, and they went through the contents of Larra’s trunks, deciding what to decorate the schoolroom with that would ignite curiosity and inspire delight in the children confined to it for several hours a day.

Sansa alternated between playing with the wooden games and hand-painted jigsaw puzzles and combing through Larra’s paintings, her progresses, and Larra’s _stories_.

“‘ _She-Wolves and Winter Kings: The Starks of Winterfell_ ’,” Sansa sighed, smiling, as she opened a fat tome Larra had created with her brothers’ and Maester Luwin’s help. It was the first manuscript Larra had ever learned to bind, and only after Maester Luwin had worked with them for months on writing biographies - seeking facts, inferring from text, understanding context and perspective, and paying close attention to the long-term ramifications of particular choices made by their heroes. She, Jon and Robb had each worked on writing biographies of the legendary Stark kings and she-wolves they had researched, even some of Old Nan’s stories preserved on the parchment. Maester Luwin had settled the argument over who got to write about Lord Cregan Stark, their mutual hero, by determining that they should work _together_ on his biography. Larra had illustrated every single entry - their faces had appeared in her dreams, as had so many others.

The last entry…was Robb, as Larra remembered him in the courtyard, armed and armoured and riding to war in the last of the late-summer snows, surrounded by his bannermen.

The two-dozen parchment pages that followed his likeness were pristine.

Larra had left room for more. For Robb’s children, and his grandchildren. They hadn’t known it, then, that those children would never be born.

Larra had never dared to _dream_ that it would be _Jon_ who was crowned the next King of Winter.

Sansa sat cross-legged on Larra’s bed, surrounded by puzzles and toys and dolls, her face shining as she tenderly caressed her fingertips over their brother’s portrait.

Larra tenderly shuffled the colourful, illustrated cards she had made of the alphabet, and the _phonics_ sounds to enable Rickon with his reading…every morning, she had been woken by Rickon climbing into bed with her for a cuddle. Before they broke their fast, before they even climbed out of bed, Larra would go through the deck of cards with Rickon, quick and easy, holding up one card and waiting for him to make the sound. She would shuffle the cards, introduce them in new ways - after their breakfast, they would sit in the godswood with a basket Larra had filled the previous afternoon with things that had the same letters as the sounds they were focusing on in Rickon’s reading - _f_ eather, _f_ ern, _f_ ish, _f_ an, _f_ rog, _f_ lower. She used to walk with Maester Luwin in the afternoons as she collected items for Rickon’s treasure-basket, as he had called it. And they would sit by the pond in the godswood, practicing their letter-formations, dragging a stick through the mud. It was the only way to get Rickon to learn: He would _not_ sit in the schoolroom at a table. Maester Luwin had educated Bran: And he had let Larra implement creative strategies to coax Rickon into engaging with his own learning, understanding that the two boys were vastly different. Bran had always been very bright and curious, eager to learn: Rickon had to be coaxed and almost hoodwinked into being educated. As long as he was playing a game, and as long as he had Larra’s attention, he was happy - and happy to learn.

The cards were rippled in places, where Rickon had spilled his tea on them, or muddy, where they had been dropped in the godswood, and some of them were bent; one of them even had a hole punctured through the parchment - where Shaggydog had attempted to help pick up the dropped cards. These cards were precious; they were her mornings with Rickon, their special time together. They were his cuddles as they went through the cards, his tawny curls tickling her chin, his giggles, and his smiles when he went through all the cards without a single error, and they moved on to the simple stories Larra and Maester Luwin had written together to introduce simple sentences and more complex words.

She tucked the cards in a neat pile and tied the sapphire velvet ribbon around them, as she had every other time before, and tucked them in Rickon’s treasure-basket full of trinkets and toys and artefacts Larra had unearthed to reinforce his lessons… She stood up, bones aching, and went to sit with Sansa on the bed, which was utterly too soft for her, but she sat with her sister, and gazed down at Robb’s handsome face.

“I never imagined it would be Jon,” she said softly.

“Who could have?” Sansa sniffed, finally turning the page, to the last Larra had written about Robb.

Beneath _She-Wolves and Winter Kings: The Starks of Winterfell_ open before Sansa, another leather-bound manuscript caught Larra’s notice. The leather was dyed red, and a three-headed dragon ouroboros was embossed on the cover, a title embellished in silver-leaf beneath it. She lifted the book into her own lap, tracing her fingers over the lettering that had taken her weeks to emboss, so particular was she about it.

“‘ _An Abbreviated History of the Dragon-Riders, Notorious Princesses and Terrible Kings of House Targaryen’_ ,” she sighed. “Otherwise known as my family-history. Gods…”

Her heart squeezing, Larra grimaced and turned to the last page.

A portrait of Prince Rhaegar with Princess Elia Martell, their daughter Princess Rhaenys standing in her father’s lap, her tiny fingers wrapped around his forefingers for balance as she smiled, infant Aegon still in his swaddling, cradled in his mother’s arms…

And another portrait, this one of Rhaegar alone, grim-faced and exhausted, silver-gold hair pulled back from his face by a neat leather cord, a swathe of dark-gold across his jaw, a battle-beard that he had not worn at Harrenhall, slogging through the carnage of battle, dressed in serviceable black armour, battered and battle-scarred, the only concession to ornament the rubies embellishing the three-headed dragon on his gorget.

Larra stared at the painting.

Not because Rhaegar was handsome and exhausted and hated war.

But because, entering the throne-room of Dragonstone that first day he had arrived, grim, exhausted and unimpressed…Jon had never looked more like him.

“It is uncanny…” she murmured, frowning down at the portrait. She trailed her fingertips over Rhaegar’s face, as Sansa had Robb’s.

“What is?” Sansa asked, her voice rather thick, as she wiped her face.

“In my dreams…I saw their faces,” Larra said distractedly, still gazing at Rhaegar. She had his eyes. Exactly, his eyes. She had seen it, in the memories Bran had shown her during their journey home…but she hadn’t even realised it as she painted this picture, all those years ago… She was painting her father. Their father. And Jon…though Lyanna’s solemn beauty dominated their looks, Jon _did_ resemble Rhaegar.

In their childhood, their resemblance to Lyanna was almost horrifying… As a man, and a seasoned warrior, Jon looked more like Rhaegar than he ever had before. She sighed, shaking her head, wincing, and her eyes stung. “My terrible family. This _is_ Rhaegar, exactly as he was during the Rebellion.”

“He looks like Jon,” Sansa said quietly, and Larra nodded. Sansa saw it too - but then, she knew Jon the Lord Commander, Jon the King. Larra remembered Jon her twin-brother, Jon who had left Winterfell for the Wall, not even yet really a man…her first glimpse of him had been in the throne-room at Dragonstone, and even then…he could not see her.

Her eyes scanned the paintings. Elegant Elia, and her little babies… Larra’s older sister, her older brother…

She gasped, feeling as if someone had just punched through her gut with a burning lance.

Rhaenys had their father’s eyes. She had _Larra’s_ eyes.

Larra turned the page, tracing her fingers over the gold-and-silver lettering pronouncing Rhaegar’s name, his unofficial title - _The Last Dragon_. The name by which the songs would always remember the tragic prince… Larra read what she had written, wincing. As with Lyanna, she had never been particularly forgiving of what she considered to be Rhaegar’s utter lapse of judgement in sneaking off with Lyanna when he should have been securing a regency to end his father’s tyranny - whether or not Lyanna had consented to it (and Larra being a fierce Northern she-wolf herself, never believed for a moment that Lyanna would have allowed herself to be carried off; she had believed Lyanna to be a selfish idiot who mucked it all up for everyone else). Larra read her entry on Rhaegar, from his birth during the Tragedy of Summerhall, to Duskendale, to the Tourney at Harrenhall…to his death at the Ruby Ford, his chest caved in by Robert Baratheon’s great war-hammer, his heart crushed, dying with Lyanna’s name on his lips.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, grimacing, and kneaded her chest with the heel of her palm at the sudden ache, uncovering the third painting connected to Rhaegar’s section… Lyanna.

Moonlight and shadows. Obsidian and snow. Lyanna’s serene, haunting beauty was captivating.

And, except for Lyanna’s grey eyes and her cascade of straight treacle-dark hair, Larra _was_ Lyanna.

Larra had her father’s violet eyes, and her paternal grandmother’s curls.

Otherwise, it was uncanny. It was… _horrifying_.

It was the reason Father’s joy had always died at the sight of Larra’s smiles.

At her back, Larra reached for her hunting-knife, unsheathing it, gripped with horror and grief and an unaccountable sense of _guilt_ , her own handwriting burning her skin like a brand of shame as she gazed down at the page, and she started to cut through the leather thongs binding the gathers inside the leather covers.

“What are you doing?” Sansa yelped, swatting at Larra’s hand, looking horrified. “Don’t ruin it!”

“It’s not _right_ ,” Larra said, stunned to hear her voice so hoarse, strained, her eyes burning. It wasn’t right. Sansa laid her hand gently on Larra’s, forcing her to still.

“Don’t ruin it,” she repeated gently.

“How could I think so _horribly_ of him?” she asked hoarsely, sniffing.

“We all did.”

“Why did Father let us grow up believing the absolute _worst_ of Rhaegar?”

“It was safer that way. You had no illusions,” Sansa said gently. The grip of sudden grief and madness and guilt eased, and Larra gentled, the grip on her knife loosening; Sansa took it from her, placing it gently on Larra’s bedside cabinet. She was a little more comfortable with holding one now, after her near-nightly lessons with Larra in the privacy of Sansa’s chamber.

“Do you know something…in all my life, I cannot remember Father ever saying a bad word about Rhaegar,” Larra said, squeezing her eyes. “Rhaegar, who…was indirectly responsible for the deaths of his father, brother _and_ his sister…”

“I imagine it was a _terrible_ sort of privilege,” Sansa said, her voice soft but thick, and Larra frowned curiously at her. “To raise Rhaegar and Lyanna’s children, who were born out of love - out of a desire for them to be born. To know that all that death, the War…was built upon a lie… That it was an unjust war. And the ones who truly suffered were the innocent - you, and Jon. You were left orphaned because of him, because of Robert.”

“He didn’t start the War…though it became his when people believed his _love_ had been snatched by Prince Rhaegar,” Larra said gloomily. “Lyanna saw through Robert… She chose another, and Robert could not forgive Rhaegar for it… But it was Jon Arryn who called his banners, protecting Robert and Father from the King. He would not yield the boys he loved as his own sons… The real reason for the War became lost over time. It was Jon’s love for his surrogate sons that started the War. Robert never loved Lyanna; he _lusted_ after her…he imagined he loved her ‘til the day she died, for she was the one woman in the world he could not have. She was a _paragon_ to him, of all he thought he deserved… She was so much _more_ …and Rhaegar knew it. He understood her true quality. That’s why she chose him… Because he was worthy of her. That’s why Father never said a word against him…because Rhaegar was a good man… It’s worse to know that he was _good_.”

“It’s a bloody mess,” Sansa said, giving Larra a glum look.

“It is indeed that,” Larra agreed, with a tremulous smile, feeling no humour. It _was_ worse to know that Rhaegar had been _good_ all along.

She gazed down at the book in her hands.

She had not left empty pages: She had not even included the two Targaryen exiles flung across the world, Viserys and Daenerys. In her mind, the Last Dragon _was_ Rhaegar.

Larra still believed that.

She was a Northerner. She was a _Stark_ , even if Father had denied her the name to protect her life. The wolf-blood flowed through her veins. She was as much a part of the North as it was a part of her.

And yet… Rhaegar was not the last Targaryen.

She wondered how he would have felt - how _they_ would have felt, him and Lyanna - to know that Jon would rise from bastardy to become Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch _and_ King in the North, uniting men against the Night King…

Rhaegar had loved songs. Lyanna had been raised on Northern legends. Larra wondered whether they would both have been simultaneously proud and horror-struck that Jon had endured a life out of legend.

 _We both have_ , she added, somewhat offhandedly.

Everything she had written about Rhaegar was wrong.

It was a disservice not just to him, but to Lyanna and Ned and Larra herself and Jon, not to correct things.

Larra sighed, and set aside the manuscript with its mangled cover, feeling guilty over her hastiness. She had nothing to replace Rhaegar’s chapter… But _should_ she replace it? Everything she had written, she had believed - as the majority of Westeros did - to be accurate. Over twenty years after the fact, the truth had been revealed. Her previous writings now filled her with shame, because she could see the scorn with which she had written about Rhaegar: A scorn he did not deserve - not from her.

“Perhaps you can amend it,” Sansa said, tenderly smoothing out the parchment featuring Rhaegar’s war portrait, the one that showed his marrow-deep weariness and hatred of war, far more punishing and accurate than anything Larra had written about him. That portrait showed his true nature - and so did the family portrait, with his daughter on his knee, smiling and deeply affectionate, proud… Larra wondered what it would have been like, to know the deep and abiding love of a father unbridled by _anything_ …

Now, Larra knew Father’s love for her had begun with his love for Lyanna, and yet it had always been strained and tarnished by that same love - and the presence of his _wife_.

Not for the first time, Larra wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a mother, _her_ mother. She wondered now what their lives would have been like had Lyanna lived…had _Rhaegar_ lived…

The last twenty years would not have happened, Bran had said.

There would certainly be no Dragon Queen turning her greedy gaze to the Seven Kingdoms, threatening to annihilate them all so she could nestle herself comfortably on a throne of fire and blood…

The Dragon Queen.

She bore the name of Targaryen yet Larra could not reconcile Daenerys with the dynasty carved out by their forefathers - because she had been separated from the culture of that extraordinary family just as effectively as Jon and Larra had. Daenerys had risen on her own, yet had only risen _because_ of her dragons - and Larra did not believe Daenerys was anything without them.

And Daenerys did not plan a restoration so much as a total conquest of sovereign nations that had effectively and irrevocably cast off three centuries of her family’s oppression.

Rickard and Brandon Stark had been the last spark to ignite the wildfire that saw House Targaryen destroyed with fire and blood.

“I shall make it up anew,” Larra declared tiredly. Rhaegar deserved better. And Daenerys Targaryen’s conquest needed to be recorded.

She would start with Daenerys Stormborn’s birth, nine moons after the Sack of King’s Landing, at Dragonstone; her marriage to Khal Drogo; her collusion with her horse-lord husband to murder her brother the Beggar King…the birth of the dragons in the Dothraki Sea, and everything that had happened since - everything Larra had witnessed in Bran’s memories, _saving_ the people of Slavers’ Bay from their savage ways, an imperialist, the pride of her Valyrian forefathers…

Perhaps Larra would compose a unique manuscript purely to record the rise of the Mother of Dragons…and her descent…

That was the thing about flying, she knew, from nursing the dire-eagle all those years ago and watching it test its healing wings and take to the air. There came a point where the creature could fly no higher…when it inevitably had to _fall_ \- either back to safety, or to its death. Sometimes they were snatched by unexpected air-currents, flinging them off-course.

Dragons were no different. Even they had their limits.

“Larra… Look what _I’ve_ found!” Sansa beamed fondly, and she showed Larra a very slim volume that Larra had created on her own, without Maester Luwin overseeing the process. It was a very slim manuscript, with a Braavosi sword burned on the plain wooden cover. “Do you remember this? I’d forgotten… It was our _favourite_ …”

Larra found herself smiling, taking the book from Sansa. “ _The Princess Bride_ …”

“I remember Arya was so _disappointed_ when you asked me for the title; then you asked her for the hero… A pirate,” Sansa said, beaming, clicking her tongue fondly at the memory - and their sister’s tomboyish nature - and Larra smiled. “Truest love and sword-fights.”

“The makings of every good story,” Larra said softly. She took the slim book, opening the dainty clasp, and flicked through the pages. It was a very simple story, not highly detailed - but it was theirs. Hers, Sansa’s, Arya’s - and the boys’ too, even the older ones. It was a story Larra had created, first for her sisters, and then her brothers had fallen in love with it. But it was clear it had been written by a novice, more time spent on the illustrations; the story itself had always varied in the retelling, Larra remembered. “Hmm…”

“What?”

“It could be improved,” Larra said fondly, gazing at the painting of the Dread Pirate, and another of the Princess Bride in her exquisite golden gown.

“Well, we loved it,” Sansa said, smiling fondly, and Larra chuckled.

“I know. Even Rickon adored it. The Dread Pirate duelling with the Braavosi swordsman,” Larra sighed. “He asked if Hodor was the Strong Man - and if _I_ was the Princess, going to be taken away to marry a prince in a foreign land… I said yes: Prince Oberyn the Red Viper. He raged and bawled for _days_ , thinking I was going to be taken from him. He would not forgive me for teasing him.” Larra’s smile turned tremulous, her eyes smarting. She sniffed, her smile brightening. “Until I brought him a treacle sponge pudding in secret, and between us we ate _every_ _single_ _crumb_ …” She pinched her eyes, sniffling, her nose and throat burning, overwhelmed. “I never used to cry at all.”

“You haven’t had years to reconcile their deaths…as I have,” Sansa said with a gentleness that was surreal to hear from her now. “And I _wept_ …”

“You wept…but you weren’t allowed to grieve,” Larra said succinctly, eyeing Sansa’s black mourning clothes. Now, she had the freedom to mourn, to grieve their loved ones - and themselves. What they had survived was nothing to scoff at.

“Read it to me, like you used to?” Sansa said gently, eyeing the book.

“You want me to?” Larra asked, and Sansa settled back against the embroidered bolster-pillow, cradling an old doll Larra had made years ago. Larra sat cross-legged at the end of the bed, glanced over at her sister and smiled. And she began, as she had begun every telling: “’The Princess Bride. Chapter One: The Most Beautiful Woman in the World’…”

She read the story, in its simplest form. And as she did so, the adventure she had imagined came to life in her mind for the first time in years. Long after Sansa had retired to change for an evening with the nobility in the great hall, Larra sat in her chamber, embellishing and improving the story of the Princess Bride in her mind, her fingers itching for a stylus and her paint-set. The little story she had created for her siblings - one of so many - was expanded and embellished, improved and revised, and she started to imagine the motivations and backstories of the characters - her soft-spoken Braavosi, in particular, who thirsted for vengeance, the most masterful swordsman in the world; the sweet giant; the calm tenacity of the elegant princess; the devotion of her hero; the sheer repugnance of the handsome prince.

The characters were all people she had loved in her own life: The humour and wit she gave them was her own.

It made her _happy_ to think of her story, and her characters, and to write the notes down, and to anticipate telling the story to other little children. It gave her something to focus on, rather than drift through the shadowed corridors of Winterfell at all hours when she did not sleep for dread of never waking.

Her mind came alive with the story of the Princess Bride and her pirate-hero, a sweet giant and a chivalrous, vengeful swordsman, a story of miracles and intrigues and the deepest and most abiding love. Of grit, and of _hope_.

* * *

By the time the caravan of wagons and wheelhouses was sighted over the moors two days later, the first chapter of the original version of _The Princess Bride_ was stuffed with inserts and notes on scraps of paper, all documenting the flurry of ideas and improvements Larra had thought up for her characters and her story.

She was excited to _share_ them.

They saw the Manderly colours flying, but no Lannister lions - except those inlaid into the polished sides of the two wheelhouses that trundled laboriously over the moors. Larra could never understand wheelhouses - with so many jolts and lurches, surely it would be more comfortable to ride? More wagons trailed behind, lots of them, and Manderly soldiers marched behind them with spears and shields.

As the Lannister wheelhouses drew to a stop, Larra and Sansa met in the courtyard, which was bustling with people all devoted to their daily chores - the everyday running of the castle, alongside siege-preparations for the war. The days were very much shorter than they were all used to, night falling barely the fifth hour after midday now, and the torches and braziers had all been lit so the work could continue. The moon was bright tonight, though, which also helped, and limned everything with silver, making the fresh snow glimmer and glisten, and made their faces glow. There was just enough light, with the torches and braziers and moonlight, to keep working, at least for a couple of hours until supper - at which time the torches and braziers were doused, heedful that their wood supply was not unlimited. They did not insist that people worked through the night: Exhausted soldiers did not make an effective army. And they had to go on under the assumption that battle could commence at any moment. They all needed the strength to endure the storm.

Several people glanced up, gaping at the lions emblazoned on the sides of the wheelhouse as they flashed in the torchlight - and at the copper-skinned riders who guarded the wheelhouses, each of them carrying cruel _arakhs_ and curved bows, their long braids oiled, tinkling with tiny silver bells, wearing shaggy furs that left their arms mostly bare, revealing rippling muscles. Their horses were very fine, and the natural riders among them took note of the patterned blankets beneath the Dothraki-style saddles, which were smaller by far than the designs favoured in Westeros. Marching on the outside of each rider was a soldier in gleaming black leather and black linen, wearing a spiked helmet that made them resemble beetles, each carrying two swords, a shield and spear. They were not dressed for the winter, but Unsullied had been trained to ignore discomfort. They were not uniform in their appearance beneath their helmets, the way the Dothraki were all copper-skinned with dark almond-shaped eyes and coarse black hair - some of the Unsullied were silver-haired Lyseni, some Ghiscari, some Summer Islanders, some had a Westerosi look to them, and some had the look of Dothraki. What made them uniform was their training. It had brutalised the individuality out of them: They had been trained to understand that to act alone was dangerous.

They had orders from their mistress.

Even over the noise of the courtyard, they could hear squabbling - a child crying, and the voice of a boy on the cusp of manhood, a woman speaking in a foreign tongue in frustration, high-pitched squabbling.

“Well…here they are,” Sansa sighed, standing a little straighter.

“Easy,” Larra warned gently, as Sansa’s features turned near-glacial. She looked queenly and imposing. “They’re frightened, tired little girls. Don’t punish them for their relatives.” Sansa sighed, glancing at Larra.

“It reminds me of her arrival,” Sansa admitted, looking uncomfortable, as two Unsullied snapped to attention and unfolded the steps below the door of each wheelhouse.

“It may look similar…but it is far from the same situation,” Larra said quietly, as others gathered at the edges of the courtyard - as much to witness the legitimate Dothraki screamers and Unsullied soldiers as the expensive wheelhouses emblazoned with lions. “This time, the North is _strong_.”

A woman with a dimpled, cheerful face sighed with relief as she climbed down the steps, her embroidered skirts shimmering beneath a heavy woollen shawl trimmed with fur, draped elegantly around her shoulders. She tucked a curtain out of the way, and held her hand out; a little paw appeared, covered in a woollen mitten, and a tired, wan little face followed. A little girl clambered down the steps, one of the middling girls, Larra recognised. She was followed by another, this one very tiny, who was passed out of the door by a woman with lustrous dark eyes, dressed elegantly but not particularly warmly, with a silk shawl patterned with sunspears draped around her head like a cowl. The little girl - the youngest of the Lannisters - was red-faced and screaming, great fat tears dripping down her sodden cheeks, hiccoughing and choking on her sobs, and she looked absolutely exhausted.

“Oh, dear,” Larra tutted softly, flinching as Rickon’s wrathful tantrums flickered through her memory, loosening something she had tucked into her belt in anticipation, as another little girl - this one unfamiliar to her, with shimmering hair that glowed silver in the moonlight, her clothing far less rich than the other girls - slipped down the steps. There was a scuffle, and a boy on the cusp of manhood briefly tussled at the doorway with the eldest of the Lannisters.

“ _Oi_! _Cissa_!” the boy grunted, as she slipped back into the wheelhouse, freeing the doorway - only to shove the boy down the steps. He fell haphazardly, hitting the wooden steps, and with a growl, he picked up a handful of muddy slush, flinging it backwards at the girl, who squealed and ducked away as she slipped down the steps.

“ _Rhysand_!” she squealed irritably, her face drawn in annoyance, swiping the sludge off her skirts, and she reached out to shove his shoulder as he blocked the foot of the steps, and her path. Eventually, she shoved her way past in a flurry of heavy skirts and shimmering blonde hair, while the boy - Rhysand - smirked insolently, sprawled at the foot of the steps in the sludge, an elbow resting against a step, eyeing the girl up as she shook her long braid back and gazed imperiously at him.

The other wheelhouse emptied, a copper-skinned woman stepping down first, her vibrant eyes wide with apprehension as she gazed around the courtyard.

“I recognise her,” Sansa murmured, and Larra looked closer.

“The Lhazareen _khaleen_ from Vaes Dothrak,” Larra said softly, glancing at her sister. The young widow whose _khal_ had broken her ribs after delivering him a daughter at the age of thirteen. She had been the youngest in the _dosh khaleen_ \- and was now one of Daenerys Targaryen’s ladies-in-waiting. Larra exchanged a glance with her sister, as the other little girls slipped out of the wheelhouse, looking sore and exhausted.

The three women looked highly relieved to be out of the confinement of the wheelhouses, especially as the youngest girl continued to scream.

Larra walked forward, as the two groups converged uncertainly. Brandon had prepared them only insomuch as he had told them where the women had come from - one from Dorne, one from Volantis, one from Vaes Dothrak. The elegant one was Nymeria Sand, the Red Viper’s dangerous daughter born of a noblewoman from one of the most ancient families of Old Volantis; the one with the pretty eyes was the _khaleen_ ; and the dimpled one with sharp glittering eyes and a cheerful disposition was the former bed-slave from Volantis. Her freedom had been bought: She still wore the mark of her enslavement in the form of the teardrop tattoo beneath her eye. Lest she ever forget. Her long earrings glittered as they swung about her face, glancing around and adjusting her fur-trimmed shawl as she bent to try and coax and coo at the little girl, as two of the Lannisters converged on her to try and do the same.

Sansa approached Nymeria Sand, the most elegant and most dangerous of the women. Larra turned to the _khaleen_ , attempting in Dothraki, “ _I greet you,_ khaleesi.” There was no way to say ‘welcome’ in the Dothraki language. But it was a respectful acknowledgement, at least, and the woman’s face - she was older than Larra, by several years, though she was still _young_ , with extraordinary beauty because of her deep copper skin and vivid pale-blue eyes - lit up with appreciation that Larra had made an attempt.

“My lady,” she said, just as uncertainly, and cast a sidelong look at Nymeria Sand before attempting a curtsy. Larra smiled, and sank down onto the ground, heedless of the sludge, to gently draw the tiniest of the girls to her - the one still hiccoughing and sobbing.

“Leona,” she said tenderly, and the two girls clustered around her froze, startled that she knew the baby’s name. She reached out to a pile of fresh snow, melting some in her palms, and wiped the tiny girl’s flushed red face. The cold shocked her, but it also cleansed her face, cooling her flushed skin and wiped away the evidence of her despair. Larra gently stroked her rounded little cheeks, and her tiny chin, wiping the last of her perfect tears as they dripped from her long curling lashes, cradling her tiny face in her hands, and leaned forward slowly, to give the little girl a tender kiss on the lips, before gathering her up in her arms and tucking her against her chest, holding her close, allowing her calm and her heat to wash over her, to let her melt into the warmth of an embrace that was deeply maternal, a protective cocoon.

Larra had held herself together for many days after they learned of Father’s execution. She had to, for Bran, and for Rickon, who had wept and raged and run away.

Larra’s first memory of being held, as if by a mother, was when Osha had found her, days later, on the verge of utter collapse, so deeply wounded by the news of Father’s death. Osha had given her the safe space and support to shatter. She had wrapped herself around Larra, holding her together for as long as it had taken Larra to put the shattered pieces back into place.

Osha had been Larra’s only experience of a fierce and abiding maternal love toward her - a wildling woman from the True North had become everything Larra had always bitterly wished the godly Lady Catelyn should have been.

Osha was the only mother’s love Larra had ever known - and treasured it still.

Larra had been nearly an adult by then: this tiny girl still had the look of a toddler, she was so tiny, just turned four, barely over a foot tall with perfect doll-like curls and wide green eyes damp with tears, and no-one had held her since her mother was burned before her eyes. All this little girl knew was that she was surrounded by strangers, her mother was gone, and no-one had taken responsibility for her care.

No-one _cared_.

She sighed, holding the tiny girl close, and kissed her gorgeous curls, and tiny fingers gripped at her leather armour, sighing heavily as she rested her head against Larra’s shoulder, her long eyelashes tickling Larra’s neck.

“Leona, there’s someone who’s been waiting for you,” she said gently, and the tiny girl whimpered. Larra loosened the cloth doll she had tucked into her belt, and Leona wriggled, sniffling, raising her head curiously. “This is Vaidence. She’s all on her own and she’s very frightened…she _desperately_ wants someone to love her.”

Tiny Leona gazed at Larra, her vibrant eyes fringed with long, curling lashes damp with unshed tears, and a calmness seemed to replace her uncertainty, as yearning warmed her face. Larra raised the doll, smiling, and Leona showed her perfect pearly teeth as she smiled, reaching out fingers still deliciously dimpled, to stroke the doll’s yarn hair. Larra whispered conspiratorially to her, “Do you think you could take care of her for me?”

It wasn’t a big doll, barely longer than her hand; Larra had sewn it years ago out of scraps, stuffed with wool, to re-enact some of her stories for Rickon. She had even sewn a wardrobe of costumes for her to match the stories.

Leona nodded, her enviable curls bouncing at the nape of her neck and at her ears, and she clasped the doll tenderly to her chest, as if it was the most precious thing in the world. She popped her thumb into her mouth, rested her head against Larra’s shoulder, and sighed, relaxing utterly into Larra’s embrace.

The other girls had been watching her, some with eyes narrowed, assessing, others with a yearning that was utterly familiar to Larra; one stared blatantly at the weapons belted at her waist, her lips parted and eyes wide with intrigue and delight. Larra recognised her as the one who had vomited on Daenerys Targaryen’s boots at the Lion Culling.

She stood, tiny Leona clamped to her chest, and approached the cluster of girls, who looked simultaneously filled with dread and yearning.

“Look at all these tired little faces,” she sighed, clicking her tongue gently. “You’ve had a very long journey.”

“Altheda vomited _all the way_ from Dragonstone,” said one, the middle girl.

“Which is Altheda?” Larra asked, and a shy little thing sighed heavily, gazing at the tips of her boots just visible under the hem of her skirts, which were indeed stained with vomit.

“She managed to get _everyone_ ,” said the boy with the vivid pale-blue eyes and a few wicked scars. He was in that in-between place, no longer a boy but not yet a man either, stretched out and awkward, starting to grow into a man’s body - and he would be a handsome man, Larra could tell, with fierce features and a wicked, ironic glint in his cutting blue eyes.

“Did you?” Larra asked her coaxingly, and the little girl’s eyes filled with tears of humiliation. Larra smiled warmly at her, cupping her chin to tenderly tilt her face upwards, so they could meet each other’s gaze. Larra twinkled at her. “Then you won the _game_ , Altheda. Did your cousins squeal?”

The little girl’s lips twitched, as the boy grinned.

“They did,” he snickered, his vivid pale-blue eyes searching her face with almost indecent intensity.

“Well, you can give it a rest now, Altheda,” Larra told her gently. “No more voyages or agonising long journeys to upset your tummy. So…I’m enjoying my delicious cuddle with Leona…but who else do we have here, Altheda? Would you introduce me to your cousins?”

Shyly, Altheda glanced at the girl beside her who had enormous blue eyes. Altheda had the daintiest lisp, and gazed demurely up at Larra through her golden lashes, telling her, “This is Lady Delphine.”

Delicate Delphine dipped an elegant curtsy. With a tender smile, Larra reached out and tucked a rope-twist behind Delphine’s ear; it had come loose from her hairstyle. In fact, all the girls’ hair looked worse for wear after their long journey. Only tiny Leona, whose curls bobbed about her neck, and the eldest, regal Narcisa, who had tucked her long hair into a simple braid, seemed unrumpled. Larra leaned in and gave Delphine a gentle kiss on the cheek.

“ _I_ am Lady Calanthe Lannister,” said the next girl, speaking for herself, raising her chin just a little, her pale gold hair loose about her shoulders and shimmering. “But the _King_ called me _the_ _Lioness_.”

“Did he then?” Larra smiled.

“And this is Lady Crisantha Lannister, but she doesn’t talk anymore,” Calanthe declared, gazing up at her cousin. Larra turned her gaze to Crisantha. She had never seen a more exhausted, more despondent creature in her life; it was as if all the life had been drained from her, leaving an exquisite shell behind. She stood with her shoulders drooping, her unseeing gaze on the ground, and the billows of golden curls Larra had seen that day of the Lion Culling now fell limp around her shoulders.

“Crisantha… Crisantha, look at me, dearest,” Larra coaxed tenderly, and she reached out to cup Crisantha’s chin, lifting her head. Crisantha’s eyes glowed like molten gold in the torchlight, but they seemed hollow, devoid of any expression - a stark contrast to the glittering emerald eyes of her bold cousin Calanthe. Larra stroked her cheek and sighed heavily, and leaned in, looping an arm around her tiny waist to tuck the unresponsive Crisantha close.

Murmuring in her ear, Larra promised her, “I’m going to do my utmost to make you feel safe enough that you’ll return to us, Crisantha.” She brushed a kiss against Crisantha’s cheek, gave her a tender squeeze, and released her.

Next was a little girl Larra did not recognise from the Lion Culling, and doing some quick counting, Larra knew she was not one of the Seven.

“This is Neva,” said the boy, standing behind the little girl with hair that glowed like crushed pearls in the moonlight, her dreamy lavender eyes glowing in the torchlight. Her hair was drawn back into a simple braid, a purple velvet ribbon tying the ends, and she reached up with her thumb and forefinger, delicately rubbing the expensive fabric.

“Hello, Neva. You’ve such a lovely name,” Larra said, smiling warmly, as little Neva tucked herself against Rhysand’s legs.

“Neva is my sister,” said the boy. “And I’m Rhysand.”

“They have no other name,” said a quiet voice, belonging to the eldest of the Lannister girls. Her pale green eyes flicked over Rhysand’s handsome face, his scarred mouth.

“Yes, we do. It’s _Waters_.”

“That’s the name given to bastards born in the Crownlands.”

“It’s our _father’s_ name,” snapped Rhysand, scowling at the girl.

“He’s not old enough to be your father,” said the eldest girl, frowning bemusedly.

“He _is_ our father if we _say_ he is our father. We are a _family_ ,” Rhysand said heatedly. “He is my father, and Neva is my sister. And nothing a spoiled, stuck-up bitch like you can say will change that.”

“That’s enough,” Larra said, with a stern look - at both of them. Rhysand flicked his gaze to her, wary; the girl looked faintly embarrassed. “I’ll not have that language, thank you. We’ve enough to be dealing with, without flinging nastiness at each other.” She gave Rhysand a quelling look, and the boy frowned at her, though relented. She turned her gaze to the last of the Lannisters - a little dumpling tucked behind the skirts of the eldest.

She squatted down, Leona still cuddled against her chest, to smile coaxingly at the little girl tucked behind her cousin’s skirts. Huge eyes gazed back at her.

“Leona, who’s this?” Larra whispered, and Leona gazed up at her, sucking her thumb complacently. Those huge eyes glanced from Larra to Leona in her arms.

“It’s Rosamund,” said Calanthe with a gentle sigh.

“Hello, Rosamund,” Larra coaxed. She smiled warmly, holding her arm open to her, as the little girl’s lip started quivering. “Would you like a cuddle?”

Eyes damp, the little girl let out a whimper and tucked herself into Larra’s embrace with a sob of relief.

“Dear me!” Larra tutted, rubbing Rosamund’s back as she burrowed close, and gave her soft blonde hair a kiss. “You’re shivering so hard, you’re making _my_ teeth rattle!” She gave her gentle kisses, on her hair, her neck, her cheek, anywhere she could get to as she squeezed Rosamund close, and Rosamund whimpered softly and clung on, her fingernails biting the leather of Larra’s armour. For a little while, she squatted in the sludge cuddling two orphaned little lion-cubs. She gave Rosamund a lingering squeeze, and straightened up; Rosamund tucked herself against Larra’s skirts, as Larra stroked her hair gently.

She approached the eldest, who was truly an exquisite beauty, with pale-green eyes and shimmering golden hair falling to her bottom, dressed in the Westerlands styles adopted from Targaryen court dress, her heavy velvet gown trimmed with fur. She was tall and incredibly regal already, exquisite, tiny breasts budding against her heavy gown, just beginning to blossom into her beauty.

Narcisa glanced at Larra, bashful and proud at once, her eyes darting to Rhysand as she blushed delicately - embarrassed to have been squabbling like brats in front of her - and Larra sighed, approaching her. Narcisa’s pale-green gaze flitted uncertainly to Larra’s face and away, as if she could not bear to meet Larra’s eye, either from fear or embarrassment. She reached out, tucking an arm around the girl’s incredibly slender waist and drew her into a gentle embrace.

“When there are not so many eyes on us,” Larra murmured, “and you don’t feel you have to act the lady in front of everyone, we shall have a proper talk, you and I.” She released Narcisa, who looked uncertain but less alarmed, and Larra reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She sighed, leaning her forehead gently against Narcisa’s, leaving her no choice but to hold her gaze. It was a quiet and gentle moment, intimate; they did not know each other. And yet, Larra knew this girl. “It is no easy thing, to be the one left behind to look after all the rest.”

Narcisa’s eyes shimmered, and Larra cupped her cheek tenderly. Larra gave her a tremulous smile, the sorrow in Narcisa’s eyes calling to her own.

She noticed Narcisa’s gaze flit to the side, just once, but her body-language changed, going rigid, her high cheekbones hollowing with dread as she gazed past Rhysand. Larra followed her gaze, watching two of the Dothraki who had dismounted, lazily swinging their _arakhs_ as they stared with a predatory greed at Narcisa, Crisantha and Delphine. True fear gripped Narcisa, her breathing turned shallow, pupils blown wide, and Larra recognised it.

Larra met the Dothraki’s gaze - and held it, ferocious and implacable.

“Rhysand?” Larra said softly, beckoning him to her with a curl of her finger, and the boy nodded, frowning hesitantly, but walked up to her. She murmured in his ear, still watching the Dothraki, “Were those Dothraki men ever alone with the girls?”

“No,” Rhysand said, and gave Larra a filthy look that spoke volumes. “I made sure of it, and so did Lady Nym.” He rolled his eyes with faint amusement, “Lady Nym’s been teaching Calanthe knife-skills. As if her bare _teeth_ aren’t enough to do real damage. None of the others’ll dare _look_ at a blade let alone use it.”

Rhysand watched her carefully as she maintained her stoic glare at the Dothraki, implacable, unblinking - unimpressed. Until _they_ looked away, unnerved by a woman who was _fearless_ in the face of them.

“Aren’t you afraid of them?” Rhysand asked quietly. “They’re killers and rapers.”

“I’ve faced and killed worse than Dothraki,” Larra said coldly.

Rhysand frowned at her.

“You’re not kissed-by-fire,” he said softly, frowning at her, making her blink in bemusement. “The King said his sister is tall and beautiful and terrifying.”

“And _I_ am all those things?” asked Larra, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Rhysand answered sincerely, frowning up at Larra in quiet awe, and Larra wondered how she looked, through the children’s eyes. She knew the Northmen and Knights of the Vale and even the Free Folk were wary of her - that a single look could silence the hall and make people mindful. “You’re not kissed-by-fire. But you look _just like_ him.”

“I should think I do…” Larra smiled softly. “Jon is my twin-brother.” Rhysand’s eyebrows rose. There came a soft gasp from Calanthe, who was pointing across the courtyard at one of the wagons. Not the wagon, Larra realised, but _Ghost_ , who had appeared, glowing in the moonlight, his long tail wagging happily as he nuzzled and bumped against a plump man climbing down from the bench.

“ _The White Wolf_ ,” Calanthe whispered, her eyes widening. “It _is_ true, the King _did_ ride into battle on the back of his giant white direwolf!”

“I thought the King could change _into_ a white wolf,” Rhysand frowned.

“Who says he can’t,” Larra said, glancing at Rhysand, smirking delicately at the look on his face.

“Dragons and men turning into fucking direwolves…” he muttered under his breath, and Larra reached out to gently clip him round the ear, raising an eyebrow in warning. He gave her a slightly rueful smile, rubbing his ear. Ghost’s shadow abandoned him, to prowl closer, and as one the little girls - and even Rhysand - collectively withdrew as Last Shadow scented the air, and Narcisa’s skirts, before nuzzling Rosamund tucked against Larra’s legs, tenderly licking her face, before bumping against Calanthe and licking the palms of Delphine and Altheda, before pausing before Crisantha, gazing up at her sorrowful face, and snorted softly, before rubbing up against Crisantha, whining softly, and padded over to Larra.

The children stared at her in awe, as the horses whickered and whinnied in fright at Shadow’s nearness.

Larra smiled. “Now, I know all of your names. My name is Alarra Snow. You may call me Larra.”

“Are you the King’s sister?”

“I am indeed,” Larra smiled. “I know that you were at Dragonstone together with him; I should like to hear all about it, for I have not seen Jon in years.”

“Why not?”

“He went to join the Night’s Watch when we were sixteen,” Larra said regretfully.

“You’ve not seen him since _then_?”

“I caught glimpses - two of them - in the years since,” Larra said. “Perhaps I can tell you that story, after you tell me about Dragonstone… In a moment, shall we go up to your chamber? There is good rich stew and we’ve tucked warming-pans in the beds so they’ll be deliciously cosy and warm. In the morning, after you’ve all had a good long sleep, I shall take you to the baths. How does that sound?”

“We…” Narcisa gazed at Larra, her eyes sliding to Sansa, conversing with Nymeria Sand and Lady Tisseia while an Unsullied soldier translated for the _khaleen_ and the Dothraki. “Rhysand and I have letters for Lady Stark. For her and no-one else. They are from the King. He entrusted them to us.”

“Well, then,” Larra smiled. “We’d best get them delivered, and then we can go inside into the warm.”

“ _Ghost_!” a voice laughed, and Larra glanced over at Shadow’s brother, who was silent as ever but fussing over the man by the wagon as he lifted a small boy from the bench. Ghost’s tail was wagging madly, and he reared up to lick the little boy’s face; the child giggled, reaching to grab Ghost’s ears. A dark-haired woman in a fine woollen dress and fur-trimmed, richly-line cloak climbed down from the wagon, and Larra stared, her eyes honing in on the man.

“ _SAM_!”

A laugh rippled from her, as the man jolted and turned, setting the child down in the sludge so that Ghost could lick his face excitedly.

For a second, Samwell Tarly stared across the courtyard, his gaze flitting over everyone. Then his eyes landed on Larra. And he gaped. He jolted as if struck by lightning, and a smile spread across his kind face - a tremulous smile of sheer disbelief.

“ _Larra_!” he cried, as Ghost nuzzled against a young woman who was dressed prettily with braids in her hair; her son reached for her hand, grinning and giggling as Ghost licked his ears, tickling him.

Larra hurried over to them, Leona still cuddled against her, Rosamund and Shadow trailing after her, and Larra beamed delightedly as Sam offered her a tight hug, blinking dazedly as if suffering from a blow to the head.

“ _Sam_. You look _well_ ,” Larra said, beaming.

“You look - _alive_!” Sam gaped, stunned, and Larra laughed. He stared at her, horrified but awed, his gaze roving over her face. “We thought…I desperately didn’t want you to go beyond the Wall… But here you are…and…and the others?”

“Bran is inside, by the hearth,” Larra said softly, her smile fading, “and Meera has returned to Greywater Watch.” Sam’s smile faltered, his face pinched with understanding.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” he said earnestly.

“So am I…” Larra’s gaze rested on the girl, who was a woman now. “Hello, Gilly.”

“I didn’t… We thought…”

Larra’s eyes burned as she gazed down at the child clutching his mother’s hand, and Larra raised her fingers to her lips. Her voice was hoarse, when she said, “This is your son.”

Only seeing Sansa for the first time had struck her as fiercely with the sense of time truly passing. The last time Larra had seen Gilly, her son had been days old; they had fled the True North and its horrors, the White Walkers - Sam had killed the first, with the obsidian dagger. He had given them obsidian weapons, too, before letting them through the magic door through the Wall - though it had killed him to let them go, knowing what they were to face.

But here was Gilly’s baby, the infant Larra had once sung a lullaby to - as much to gentle the fussy newborn as to soothe Hodor, who had been upset by Bran’s ghost-stories about the Nightfort they had sheltered in.

Gilly’s son was a happy little boy with curling dark hair and a cheerful smile, chattering away as Ghost fussed over him, his tail wagging.

“This is Little Sam,” Gilly said, her smile proud, and Sam nodded, his eyes twinkling. Larra sank into a squat in front of the little boy.

“Hello, Sam,” she said softly. “You won’t remember me… I knew you when you had just been born... I’m very pleased to meet you again. I never thought I would.”

“However did you survive beyond the Wall?” Gilly asked, looking awestruck. Sam gazed at Larra, too.

Larra said softly, “I shall tell you my story, if you tell me yours. Where have you been?”

“In Oldtown.”

“Sam stole books from the Citadel.”

“I - “ Sam grimaced guiltily, as Larra raised her eyebrows.

“You were at the Citadel?” she breathed, awed. “What was it _like_?”

Sam beamed wistfully. “It was _wonderful_.”

“You hated it! All you ever did was _moan_!” Gilly declared.

“I disliked the maesters’ nasty attitudes,” Sam said, his tone fair, and Gilly smiled indulgently at him. “The archives themselves were _magnificent_.” Sam smiled at Larra. “I know I asked Jon to send me south, but I was useless to him there, I realised. So I’m here to help, in whatever way I can. Where is Jon?”

“He left for Dragonstone before we returned to Winterfell,” Larra sighed, and Sam faltered. He gazed at her.

“Does… He doesn’t know you’re alive. Oh, I’m so glad I shall be here to witness it when Jon sees you again. I _hated_ telling Jon that I’d let you through the Wall… I felt like I’d let him down - I know I let _you_ down, letting you go beyond… But you’re _alive_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reunions! I just love Sam. He’s just so earnest and gentle and brave and good and wise…
> 
> Also wanted to show the beginnings of a bond forming between Larra and each of the Lannister girls - and that Sansa will be a bit standoffish with them, her own trauma in King’s Landing still too fresh, but Larra is going to become something of a surrogate-mother to them that is founded on Larra never having had a mother herself. Also the continuity that she clips Rhysand round the ear for swearing, the same as Gendry does! I’m looking forward to writing more scenes with the children.


	33. Rhaegar's Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold onto your butts, you’re going to love this one.

**Valyrian Steel**

_33_

_Rhaegar’s Revenge_

“How many people live here?”

“A million, or nearabouts,” Ser Davos said, and Jon exhaled a stunned breath, grimacing.

“More than the entire population of the North, crammed into a place smaller than Winterfell,” he said with a grim look. “When I was a boy, Maester Luwin taught us architecture and economics. Winter’s Town has been successful for millennia because it was _planned_ , and expansions were carried out during the spring and summer years to prepare for the next winter when the North converged on Winterfell… Maester Luwin had visited King’s Landing; he said the city saw an explosion of population-growth as the Red Keep was completed, but no-one had thought to plan for where people would live outside of the castle.”

Jon frowned up at the Red Keep, thinking. It sounded very like Daenerys’ occupation of Dragonstone - she had claimed the castle and planted herself firmly on the jagged throne, and no-one thought of her followers until _Jon_ had tasked Lord Tyrion with designing a Winter Town for the Dothraki, Meereenese and other freed-slaves who had followed Daenerys to Westeros - and been left to fend for themselves, the Queen having forgotten all her promises of a better world she intended to create for them.

The sails rippled in the wind, and Jon glanced up at them. The Stark sigil was bared proudly today, and they sailed into the harbour of Blackwater Bay, the direwolf figurehead of _Winter_ snarling dangerously as they swept through the choppy dark-grey waters.

It was perhaps only the appearance of safety in numbers, but Jon was glad of even this fraction of the Northern fleet accompanying him, with the Greyjoys and the Tyrells, and several choice ships from the Targaryen fleet bringing Lord Tyrion to the mainland. Lord Tyrion was still in rather a state of agitation: Daenerys had, after all, gone inexplicably missing on the back of her dragons, and returned a week later on a ship with the King in the North, a wight, and one of her dragons injured.

Things on Dragonstone had been… _tense_ upon their return.

Ironically, in their lady’s absence, the Queen’s Council had been able to work with efficiency and focus: They had gotten along far better without her, not that they would say so to her face. They didn’t need to, though: Jon saw it.

And he did his utmost to stay away from the Queen, remembering Gendry’s simple words that continued to bolster him: “ _It’s not you who should be feeling ashamed. And the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them_.”

Well, he could start _standing up_ to the bully - after this summit.

On the return journey to Dragonstone, Daenerys had been given the captain’s cabin. And Jon had slept - tried to sleep - in one of the hammocks with the other men.

He had given the Queen no further opportunities to climb into bed and take what she wanted from him, and even though the air was cool, Jon flushed - with shame… It was one thing for Gendry to _say_ it was not _they_ who should be ashamed, because Jon _felt_ ashamed.

That he did not have the freedom to deny her. Jon understood exactly what the dynamics were between them. He was in a precarious position: He _needed_ Daenerys’ armies.

But he did not want her. Nor did he want her to believe this tentative alliance meant he would be in any way moved to bend the knee to her out of gratitude or _obligation_ because she had committed her troops to a cause that served to protect not just his people but _all_ people - including those she intended to conquer.

He frowned up at the Red Keep. This was where her family’s legacy had begun. King’s Landing - Aegon’s city. The throne he had created with dragonfire and the swords of those he conquered, thousands of them. Sansa had told Jon it was an ugly, unwieldy thing, the Iron Throne. _Impractical_ , she had sneered, and Jon teased her, reminding her that she had once desired to perch beside it with little golden-haired babies cooing in her lap, the beloved Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Queen Sansa. It even _sounded_ right.

She would hate that Jon was here. He knew, sending the letter with Rhysand, that Sansa would be furious. That she would…would be _afraid_ \- for him.

Uncle Brandon and their grandfather had tortured and tormented and mutilated before death had blessedly claimed them. Summoned south by the Dragon Queen’s mad father.

The last man in their family to come south had died with his head on the executioner’s block - in front of Sansa.

Sansa had spent years navigating the treacherous political mire that was the royal court, and now that she had escaped it, Sansa was adamant about keeping the Northmen away from it by any means necessary.

To say relations between the Iron Throne and the North were _hostile_ was underselling it.

But Jon was not Ned: And he had had to do his fair share of political manoeuvring. He was glad, though, that he did not arrive at King’s Landing alone. He was even more gratified that among the ships already moored were several from the Stormlands, the Arbour and the Westerlands. The ravens that had been sent out had gained traction, it seemed; there was even a ship from Oldtown, he thought, the figurehead of the ship nothing more or less than a maester’s chain, coiled and knotted, made of many dozens of different materials that glinted or shimmered in the light reflecting off the water as they passed. One gorgeous ship bore a figurehead of a beautiful woman with a long spear in one hand and a sun cradled in her other palm, both gilded. The Dornish. Their flagship was named _Nymeria_ , and the name painted in gold sent a pang through Jon’s heart worse than any knife.

 _Arya_ , he thought, with a sigh, gazing up at the Red Keep. Sansa’s prison, for so many years. Not Arya’s, though: She had endured a very different fate - she had become a wanderer, just like her hero Nymeria. The last Gendry had seen of Arya, they had been in the Riverlands: But they had met here in King’s Landing, the day they took Father’s head.

Jon had one of his black brothers to thank for her escape from this city, though Jon had barely any recollection of the man Yoren, beyond him having a hearty laugh and a sensible if rough demeanour. He had been a good friend of Uncle Benjen’s, Jon remembered. What Gendry could recall of Yoren fit Jon’s limited memories of the man: He had been tough as old boots and dangerous enough to survive wandering the Seven Kingdoms the last twenty years recruiting for the Watch.

“Where’s the summit being held?” Jon asked quietly. He was acutely aware that the ravens sent out had named _Jon_ , the King in the North, as the one who had called an armistice and invited the lords of Westeros to King’s Landing for a meeting of dire significance.

“According to Lord Tyrion, in the Dragonpit,” Ser Davos said, and his beard twitched as he added, his tone dripping with irony, “Fitting.”

“Cersei will have chosen the Pit as a perfect place to jibe Daenerys,” Jon said heavily, and Ser Davos nodded.

“Undoubtedly. You know this isn’t going to be about the wight so much as everyone airing their grievances and blaming each other for every wrong committed the last fifty years,” Ser Davos grunted, sounding tired already. Jon nodded.

“I know it,” he said quietly. “I’m just glad so many have responded to the ravens.”

“A chance to see the White Wolf _and_ the Dragon Queen?” Ser Davos chuckled, and Jon gave him a look. Ser Davos gave him a measuring frown. “Are you alright?”

“Better, now that there’s some distance,” Jon admitted, sighing heavily, reaching up to rub his face in exhaustion. It was just past dawn, and he could hear the noise of the city drifting over the water as they approached the harbour. Ser Davos frowned steadily at him; Jon shrugged it off. “She got what she wanted; we have her armies.”

Ser Davos said nothing, just frowned steadily at him.

“What you gave her is not nearly all she wants, though, is it?” he said quietly. “Nor was it hers to just take.”

“You’ve been speaking with Gendry,” Jon said darkly.

“He thought it was something I might need to know about, as your advisor - and your friend,” Ser Davos said, and a look passed over his face that startled Jon - for a moment, Ned Stark was staring at him, his face full of anguish and concern. “Jon…you don’t have to do this.”

“That’s what Gendry said… But I do,” Jon said grimly, gazing back at Ser Davos. “Maester Aemon once asked me, if the day ever came when my father had to choose between honour and those he loved, what would he do.”

“And how did you answer?”

“I said my father would do what was right… Maester Aemon told me that love is the death of duty,” Jon said, Ygritte’s face flashing in his mind - but she looked more like Sansa than ever, and he winced. “I don’t quite agree. My duty is to those I love - it’s because I love them that I’ll do my duty by them. By everyone.”

Jon never forgot that he had ripped off the Lord Commander’s heavy cloak and was set to leave the Wall and the North forever, the day that Sansa had appeared at Castle Black. Regardless of all he knew, all he had done, everything he knew was coming, Jon had…had had _enough_. He was tired…so _tired_ …

Jon’s love for Sansa had bolstered him - had strengthened his commitment to his _duty_.

His love had not been the death-knell for his duty. It had been a lightning-bolt striking him to _remind_ him of what that duty was - and to whom.

Sansa had burned through his exhaustion, his…his _despair_. She had relit the embers; the Battle of the Bastards had seen the spark catch into a fury, burning through him - he had _fought_. He had not merely woken to endure every day: He had realised…no matter how often he questioned that he _did_ , Jon _lived_. He was alive. He should be dead. He was going to fight for every stolen dawn.

He had been ready to give up. To _give in_.

Sansa hadn’t let him.

Her love - his love for her - had only strengthened his devotion to his duty.

Maester Aemon had been partially right. Ygritte had died because he had chosen his duty as a brother of the Night’s Watch over her: But it was because of his love for Sansa that Jon had not abandoned his duty to the North, to everyone.

She was the reason he was here today.

And she would be the reason he left this city alive. He had her guiding him; he had her to return home to.

Jon sighed. “How many Ironborn ships do you count?”

“Too many,” Ser Davos said grimly, his clever eyes flitting across the bay. The Iron Fleet - led by Euron Greyjoy, self-proclaimed King of the Iron Islands - littered the bay, and Jon felt the tension building between his shoulder-blades. “I’ve known this city under siege before. Their presence gives me the same feeling.”

“I do not understand Cersei allying with Euron Greyjoy,” Jon admitted. “Why ally for his ships if she’s not going to utilise their strength properly?”

“How so?”

“If I was Cersei, and had the Iron Fleet at my disposal,” Jon thought - _and a warg to be my spy_ \- “I would have found a way to provoke Daenerys to dispatching her armies to the mainland - and had the Iron Fleet waiting, to stop them. The Dothraki are out of their elements on the sea. As fierce as they are, the Ironborn are second-to-none when it comes to sea-warfare. I would have ensure the majority of Daenerys’ forces never made it to shore.”

“And her dragon?”

“Cersei is ruthless,” Jon mused. “She proved that with the Sept of Baelor. Her own kin were acceptable collateral when it came to destroying her enemies… She would sacrifice the Iron Fleet in a heartbeat if it split open a wound Daenerys could not easily heal.”

“She’d still have those dragons,” Ser Davos said, and Jon grunted. He felt that Daenerys would be more dangerous _without_ her two armies - without the Unsullied and Dothraki to unleash, leaving nothing but her three dragons, all Aegon and his sisters had when they brought Westeros to its knees.

And yet…and yet Viserion was still healing. The Night King’s spear of ice had wounded Viserion - and though the ice had melted…Viserion was not healing. Not as he would from a normal spear-wound - not nearly as quickly as Drogon was healing from the wounds inflicted at the Ash Meadow. Viserion, the smallest and least vicious of the dragons - though that did not say much - was still suffering from lingering pain.

They could _hurt_ : They could be killed.

And Jon imagined Cersei already planned to exploit that fact.

He glanced behind him. In the distance, some of the Targaryen fleet was just sailing into the Blackwater Bay. The Queen had decided she would arrive by _air_ rather than by sea.

In spite of the injuries to _two_ of her dragons, Daenerys had declared all three would accompany her to King’s Landing. As would her Dothraki screamers, and her Unsullied.

Larra used to love playing cards with Jon: She would spend hours painting them, filling each miniature picture with exquisite details, clues and hints at jokes only they understood. She invented _games_. And through their cyvasse campaigns with Maester Luwin’s guidance, they had both learned - _never_ to show all their cards.

Her Dothraki, her remaining Unsullied, her three dragons - two of them injured, one visibly struggling to fly great distances, or at speed. All Daenerys had, put on display as a show of her strength.

And yet Jon knew the very great vulnerability of her armies. Her Unsullied were depleted; her Dothraki were undisciplined; and her dragons were wounded.

They could _bleed_.

It was…a _relief_ , to Jon. Horrifying as the image was at the time, now, Jon could look back at Viserion’s injury by the Night King’s spear and know…the dragons were not invulnerable.

Therefore the Queen was not invincible. She was not a god. Not a horrifying figure from legend, implacable and immortal.

Just a girl, with two armies she had no idea how to truly command, and three dragons that were living creatures just as any other - and like every other creature in the world, could be killed.

She had wagered her entire conquest on them.

Take them away…what was Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains left with?

A self-aggrandising name.

Strip it all away…Jon could breathe a little more easily. He appreciated that her armies could be destroyed, that her dragons could _bleed_ \- and that _without_ them, she was nothing but a name.

She was just a person.

Jon felt lighter than he had in days, as they trudged toward the Dragonpit, turning over the details of his epiphany about Daenerys’ power. The illusion of her power over _him_.

She only had power over him if he yielded it to her.

He hated that she had crawled into his bed, and put him in that position of utter vulnerability - to have no _choice_. Jon found it extraordinary that a person who named herself the _Breaker of Chains_ so easily exerted her own power over another who was in a position seemingly more vulnerable than her own…

Of everything he had _heard_ of Daenerys Targaryen’s exploits in Essos, what he had witnessed at Dragonstone, and how she had conducted herself in the Ash Meadow the day of the Lion Culling, her climbing into his bed to force him to bed her - knowing full well the underlying political tensions, asserting herself over him while he was powerless to deny her - had cemented Jon’s understanding of her true nature. Even though she lied to herself about who she was, Jon saw it with punishing clarity.

* * *

He sighed grimly, frowning up at the Dragonpit looming above them, casting shadows across the city as the pale, hot sun beat down, whipping a cold wind off the Blackwater that brought noisome odours from the slums when the breeze blew the wrong way - the city’s foul stench was so thick, Jon could almost chew it, and he didn’t wonder about the wealth of heavily-scented plants and shrubs lining the gravel walkways through the gardens that led up the hill on which the Dragonpit stood like a broken crown, and he wandered between unfamiliar olive trees, their leaves glimmering silver-green in the sunlight, noticing more and more of the city’s higher-ranking nobility and merchant lords lingering among the terraced gardens full of white lavender, purple sage, myrtle trees and nodding penstemons. The sun-baked red roofs of the city grew smaller as he strode up Rhaenys’ Hill, and the air became cooler, crisper and free of the stench of the city below. 

It certainly _smelled_ like a million people were crammed into the tiny space, and when Jon paused to turn and take in the view, he could see the great manses with their cultivated gardens giving way to winding streets choked with buildings piling on top of each other, and the slums tumbling toward the gates, and stretching beyond them. A million people, forced to live on top of each other… He cast a scornful look at the Red Keep. Aegon may not have planned for the city to erupt around his castle, but his successors had certainly had the time to invest in designing a city worthy of its people.

He glanced ahead up the gravel path, and back behind him - toward Obara Sand, whose angry eyes had focused on the rich ochre silks and glimmering golden sunspears emblazoned on the banners and cloaks of the guards marching ahead. Four of them carried a fine litter, also emblazoned with the sunspear of Dorne.

The Dragonpit had been largely left untouched since the Dance of Dragons: The sandy floor, the fire-blasted walls, the broken domed ceiling. A decrepit ruin, all that was left of a legacy of fearsome power.

Cersei had chosen well for the summit’s location, Jon thought. She had chosen the place that at once represented the might of the Targaryen dynasty - and its ultimate downfall. The same reason for both: Dragons.

The Dragonpit had been prepared for a summit, with the sandy floor cleared of debris and swept, with raised pavilions newly-built, decorated fit for royalty, draped in House colours and clustered with potted plants, all to disguise the lingering scent of the city. His own pavilion was draped not with a banner of white with the grey Stark direwolf emblazoned on it, but rather the other way around - pale-grey silk on which a snow-white direwolf was stitched, a nod both to Jon’s nickname and a snide reminder that he was forbidden his father’s sigil due to his birth as a bastard - and Cersei remembered. There were several chairs set aside, all high-backed and unadorned.

He could not help notice, however, that the pavilion draped in his colours was somewhat larger than the one dedicated to Daenerys’ court, which was draped in black silk emblazoned with a ruby-red three-headed dragon. There were also no chairs beneath the Targaryen awning.

There was also no pavilion for House Tyrell, nor any of the Lords of the Reach, the Stormlands, the Vale or the Riverlands. Only House Lannister, House Stark, House Martell and House Targaryen.

The grandest pavilion was drenched with Lannister gold - though the traditional red of their sigil was now a deep, blood-red closer to black, perhaps as a show of the Queen’s continued mourning, and as for the lion…it seemed abstract, now, its mane twisted into a representation of the Iron Throne on which Cersei now sat. It was interesting, Jon thought, frowning at the strange design, that the Queen would have had her new sigil embroidered in silver, with only a few wisps of gold chased through it. Beneath the awning were several comfortable, leather-upholstered chairs, spindly tables overflowing with exotic fruits and glinting carafes of expensive wine and pastries and carved joints of meat, liveried servants already standing attendance. A great chaise rested in the centre of the pavilion on a dais that raised the sitter above everyone else, richly upholstered with shimmering gold fabric, cushions and furs arranged neatly. Braziers either side of the chaise made cleverly into the shape of roaring lions were already lit, and would shed further warmth over the person who reclined there.

It was not cold - not by Jon’s standards - but for King’s Landing, there was a distinctive chill in the air that, to Jon’s well-trained nose, smelled like the threat of snow. He glanced up, past the crooked remains of the Dragonpit’s domed ceiling - which looked like jagged broken teeth - to the skies, which were mostly clear, allowing the sun to shine down, but beyond the hills heavy white clouds lumbered past on a sluggish wind.

Before the people of King’s Landing would realise it, winter would be upon them.

The small litter ahead of them stopped at the Martell pavilion, where several high-backed, leather-upholstered chairs were arranged beneath an awning of shimmering ochre velvet embroidered with sunspears, and a young woman was assisted out of it.

Jon had to hand it to Cersei, she knew how to make her feelings known, without having to say a word. Hard, unforgiving wooden chairs for Jon; leather-upholstered ones for the Dornish; and none at all for Daenerys and her court.

The reason for the leather-upholstered chairs in the Dornish pavilion was apparent; the envoy from the Water Gardens was a glorious blonde young-woman Jon vaguely recognised.

 _Vaguely_ \- because he had seen her many years ago, when she had been but a young girl.

Jon glanced over his shoulder at his own company, and they exchanged a look, heading for the pavilion set aside for the King in the North.

Lady Ellaria had given Jon prior warning that the envoy from Dorne would be the Princess Myrcella, freshly wed to Prince Doran’s son Prince Trystane.

The Princess looked very heavily pregnant for a girl freshly married, and she sighed as she climbed out of the litter, her jewelled hands lingering on her huge belly, her lower-back. She glimmered in gold, an elaborately embroidered dress of gold lace and silk trimmed with velvet, with a long filigree belt and matching necklace, and a heavy cloak of ivory-and-gold velvet brocade trimmed with sleek, shimmering pale-gold furs, with a gold chain and jewelled clasp. Her golden hair, more vibrant even than her dress, glimmered in tumbling waves to her waist, and on her head she wore a simple circlet of gold set with citrines, each of them carved with a sunspear motif.

Ellaria Sand, and her two youngest daughters, had seen the princess, and with the exception of Obara Sand, who gave him a terse but respectful bow, the ladies all curtsied to Jon before making their way to their new princess and kinswoman-by-marriage, who greeted them with beauteous smiles and a glimmer in her eyes as she was enveloped in a fierce embrace by Lady Ellaria, whose gaze dipped down to the Princess’s swollen belly, and started to croon her delight, tenderly and familiarly stroking the Princess’s chin before kissing her on the lips. The little girls both curtsied to their princess, who took their hands and walked with them to the pavilion, the youngest chatting happily about her adventures terrorising the servants of Dragonstone.

Jon glanced over his shoulder at the rest of his company - Ser Davos, Lord Randyll and Dickon Tarly, Lord Barahir and his men, Lord Beric Dondarrion, and Jon’s guards - and they made their way to the pavilion marked for the King in the North. Sandor Clegane remained behind, gently stroking the neck of the donkey harnessed to the wagon in which they had transported the crated and chained wight from the ship. Reaching into the wagon, Jon withdrew one of the small parcels he had brought ashore. A small box, safely wrapped inside a pocket of velvet.

Remembering that certain things were expected of him as a sovereign engaging in politics, Jon had visited Daenerys’ jeweller before they had disembarked from Dragonstone.

The gift was not what it should have been, but it was all Jon could offer. The North was not a wealthy country - recently beleaguered by war and disunity - and never had been. Its strength had never come from its wealth, but from its people. _Let the Lannisters have their gold_ , Jon thought: He had the respect of his people.

Lady Ellaria smiled as he approached the Martell pavilion. The Princess sat on the upholstered chair in the centre of the pavilion, stroking the hair of Ellaria’s older daughter, and she started and smiled as Jon approached, giving her a respectful half-bow.

“Princess Myrcella. May I offer my best wishes on your marriage,” Jon said formally, remembering what Septa Mordane had drilled into him. He was to extend _best wishes_ to the bride, and _congratulate_ the groom on coaxing his bride to accept his offer of marriage. In the back of his memory, Larra scoffed: _As if the girl had any choice in the matter_!

Princess Myrcella was radiant with joy, however. If she was unhappy in her arranged marriage, she was an expert actress to conceal her true feelings.

The Princess stood, and somehow, despite her bulging belly, managed to sweep an elegant curtsy. “Your Grace,” she smiled, glowing more brightly than the sun above. It startled Jon - not just to be recognised as a King, but without hesitation, by someone born and raised a princess…even if the circumstances of her birth were questionable at best. She had been born and raised what she was; a princess. And yet she had not hesitated to address Jon as someone who now outranked her.

For Jon, banished to the farthest part of the hall during feasts, it was a strange feeling.

“It is not what it should be, Princess,” he said softly, solemnly offering Princess Myrcella the box. “But a small token from the Northern kingdom on your marriage.”

The Princess looked surprised and a little flattered, her eyes taking in Jon’s freshly-cropped curls, his neatly trimmed beard, his brigandine and his polished gorget and boots. It was too hot for the cloak Sansa had given him; he had already slung it over the wagon. And it felt hotter still under the Princess’s gaze, for he never had been at ease when women took notice of him.

She drew the small box from the velvet sleeve. It was made of weirwood, polished until it glowed like pearl, and had been inlaid with obsidian and gold, combining two sigils - the Lannister roaring lion’s head and the Martell sunspear. The box had cost more than the obsidian it contained: Queen Daenerys’ jeweller, formerly of Qarth, had inlaid the weirwood box himself, purchased in White Harbour on their return journey from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, and had cut and polished a chunk of obsidian into small, multi-faceted gems. Princess Myrcella ran her jewelled fingers over the surface of the box, her beautiful lips tilting at the corners into an appreciative smile, and she opened the box, the sound of the obsidian gems slinking and clicking against each other as she sifted her fingers through them strange and oddly pretty.

“It’s obsidian, or dragonglass. Had I more time, I would have had them set in silver, but… I don’t know the fashions,” Jon admitted, and the princess smiled sweetly, her eyes crinkling. He glanced into the princess’s beautiful face, and said, wincing slightly, “The colour may be too harsh for you.”

“My child shall be a salty Dornishmen, like their father,” she said softly, her voice gentle and kind. “Dark hair and dark eyes, I’ve no doubt. If it is a girl, I shall have the stones set into a circlet; and if I give birth to a son, I shall have the armourers craft a sword for him, and embed the obsidian into the hilt. A gift from the King in the North. Thank you for the gift, Your Grace…you are as thoughtful as your sister.”

“Lady Sansa has always adored fine things,” Jon admitted, with a slightly rueful smile, happy that Sansa had at least outgrown that passion. The Northern coffers could not afford to sustain the passion for Qartheen silk she had developed in her time at court.

Princess Myrcella dimpled. “Your Grace, I meant your _twin_ -sister. Alarra.”

Jon blinked, and stared. _Larra_?!

The Princess smiled again, and it was so beautiful other men would have fallen on their swords for her favour. Jon felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach by the mule pulling the wagon. “I remember you, Your Grace. From my time as a guest of your family at Winterfell. We danced together, at the welcome feast - though you blushed and mumbled; your sister had shoved you in my way so you _had_ to. Alarra, with the violet eyes…” Jon stared at her, and perhaps it was the withdrawn, harrowed look in Jon’s eyes, his sudden paleness, that made the princess glance uncertainly at him, and dip her chin, gazing sadly through her lashes at him. “Sometimes…when I am wandering the Water Gardens, I am reminded of picking flowers in the godswood. I still have the book of Northern wildflowers Lady Larra taught me to press - and the portrait she painted of me…. I cried when we learned she had been killed.”

Mouth dry, Jon all but croaked, “I had forgotten about the painting.”

Princess Myrcella’s smile was tremulous as she caressed her swollen belly. Her voice was hoarse as she admitted, “I keep it on my dressing-table. I think about her all the time…”

Jon gulped. “I do remember the port, and the heavy cake, though,” he told her, and Princess Myrcella gasped, a pretty blush colouring her cheeks.

“No! You mustn’t tell - Uncle _promised_ it was our secret!” she laughed giddily, her eyes dancing.

“Who d’you think carried you to your chamber? Lord Tyrion?” Jon smirked playfully, remembering the day when Lord Tyrion and Larra had polished off a heavy fruitcake topped with plum jam and a bottle of rich Arbour port, and accidentally got Princess Myrcella and Prince Tommen drunk on the stuff while they played games with their uncle, and their new favourite playmate Larra, who had indeed coaxed the royal children on walks through the godswood - to Sansa’s benefit and delight, befriending the princess - and flattered the queen (before the dreadfulness with the flogging) by requesting to paint the royal children’s portraits. That afternoon, Larra had carried a sleeping Prince Tommen to the royal nursery via the servants’ passages to ensure they were not caught by the Queen; Jon had carried Princess Myrcella, and Lord Tyrion had giggled as he had smoothed the children’s golden curls after Jon and Larra had tucked them into bed, tenderly kissed them on the brow, and proceeded to lose the contents of his coin-purse to Larra in a game of cyvasse.

“Oh dear,” Princess Myrcella gasped, one hand over her smiling lips. “What must you have thought of me?”

“Port and heavy cake’s the ruin of many strong Northmen,” Jon smiled. “A dainty little waif from the South stood no chance.”

“Do you know, I’ve never since tasted port so velvety rich - or cake so moist and good… We walked through the godswood for _hours_ , and sat about the fire warming our toes, cuddling with Tommen,” Princess Myrcella said, and her smile slowly faded. She blinked several times, and Jon saw her glance across the city…to the crater that had once been the Sept of Baelor…to the Red Keep, from where her younger-brother had thrown himself to his death. Jon vaguely remembered the little prince - swaddled in so many pillows in the training-yard that a blow would never land on him.

“I am sorry for his death,” Jon said earnestly.

“So am I,” Princess Myrcella said throatily. She blinked several times, her eyes no longer shimmering. “I was glad to hear that Lady Sansa has returned home. Your Grace… Would it be impertinent of me to ask a favour?”

“Of course not,” Jon said, frowning softly.

“I…had anticipated that perhaps Lady Sansa would be attending this summit,” she said, with a slight wince of disappointment: Sansa would never set foot in King’s Landing again. “And…then I realised she would likely never leave her home again, after all she endured… My own experiences as guest in a strange court have illuminated some of the unkindnesses Lady Sansa endured. I was not the sister or friend she deserved.”

“You were both children,” Jon said gently. And he was stunned to realise that Princess Myrcella was in every way the opposite of what Sansa knew Cersei to be - and by extension, what Jon also believed her to be.

“I have no such excuse now,” Princess Myrcella said, and she reached into a deep pocket inside her cloak, withdrawing an envelope sealed with ochre wax shimmering with gold. She used the Martell sunspear sigil, rather than her mother’s Lannister lion. “I wrote this letter. I would be honoured if you would deliver it to Lady Sansa. It shall be some time before I ever see her again, I know…it is my small way of apologising. And perhaps…perhaps building on what should have been a loyal friendship where I protected Lady Sansa… Your sister is Regent to the Northern crown while you are abroad; I shall also be sister to a sovereign, when the day comes that Princess Arianne takes up her father’s position as ruler of Dorne… I should…like us to be friends.”

“I should like that very much,” Jon said solemnly, giving her a small bow, and understanding absolutely the implications. He took the envelope from Princess Myrcella. “I’ll deliver your letter. Sansa said you were always very kind.”

“Not as kind as she deserved,” Princess Myrcella said; she seemed set to punish herself for the abuse Sansa had endured at her mother’s and brother’s hands - because she was now highly aware of what had truly transpired at court while she was still a girl.

She was excellent, Jon thought. Gracefully navigating political waters. She was very like Sansa - elegant, dignified, eloquent - and yet she lacked the bite of steel that Sansa had acquired. Sansa had always had a sharper tongue, though, less genuine sweetness than Princess Myrcella radiated: Sansa could never have walked on air the way Princess Myrcella did. Because despite her childish obsession with songs and knights and her naïveté, Sansa had always had it in her to be a fierce, strong Northern she-wolf.

He gave Myrcella a respectful half-bow, kissed Lady Ellaria’s hand, rumpled her daughters’ hair playfully - they squawked protests but grinned - nodded to Obara Sand, and made her way over to the pavilion under which his men were resting, waiting.

Jon sat down, arms folded over his chest, legs spread out, and didn’t realise he was scowling until Ser Davos murmured, “Are you alright?”

“Hm?” Jon blinked, startled, staring at Ser Davos. He nodded hastily and cleared his throat.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Princess Myrcella just…reminded me of her family’s visit to Winterfell…my sister Larra taught her the names of all the Northern wildflowers, and painted her portrait,” Jon said, and Ser Davos gave him a pinched look of understanding.

He did a very good job of not remembering Larra, until something like this happened - until one of the Lannister or Tyrell girls reminded him vividly of something his twin used to do, or Princess Myrcella shared her own memories of his sister…the things that had made her extraordinary, and very much missed. He was jarred that Larra’s name had been mentioned - and by Princess Myrcella, the least-likely person imaginable. And for a moment, Jon’s grief was agonising - overwhelming.

Then Sandor Clegane set the crate down, far enough from the pavilions that the wight could not reach them without them all having fair warning if it escaped.

And then a second, larger litter arrived, one Jon recognised. It was gilded with lattices heavy with roses, and behind the gold overlay, the wooden panelling concealing the reinforced steel walls had been painted teal-green. Tyrell guards in their velvet-covered armour stood sentry as servants carried the litter, and Jon heard the snappish tone of the Queen of Thorns before she appeared, ill-tempered and exhausted from her journey, but absolutely _determined_. Thinner than Jon’s memory of her, Lady Olenna still wore her mourning clothes, though still with her brilliant gold belt of thorny vines and an elaborate rose. Her weight loss was not the most remarkable thing about the old lady; she now walked with a polished rosewood cane - and Jon could not help but feel that, in spite of her ongoing recovery, the old lady was more dangerous now _because_ of that walking-stick.

She grumbled and scowled as she climbed awkwardly out of the litter, snapping at one of the servants, who jumped to help her. Behind her, her granddaughter appeared, her hand outstretched to rest on Lady Olenna’s arm, her tone soothing and soft. Nora looked beautiful in a deep emerald-green velvet brocade gown, her belt a more delicate and intricate interpretation of her grandmother’s, a wide criss-crossing of delicate thorny vines bedecked with dainty golden blossoms, some of them set with tiny pearls, climbing up toward her breasts and down over her hips like the caresses of a lover, and over her shoulders she wore a stole of glossy black fur. She looked vibrant and powerful, in a way she never had before. It was her gown, Jon thought, the rich colour bold and eye-catching, mature - and the way she held herself, no longer the fragile wallflower in the jagged throne-room of Dragonstone, nor the fractured girl broken by grief on the clifftop. This was the Lady of Highgarden, in all her glory, straight-backed, clever and proud. Jon noticed her glance across to the Martell pavilion, where Princess Myrcella sat, her belly proudly on display.

The two Tyrells - Nora’s cousins had been loaded onto their flagship, and Jon, if no-one else, knew that the Tyrells were already planning to head south to their Redwyne cousins in the Arbour - made their way to the Martell pavilion, and Jon watched introductions being made by Lady Ellaria. Of course, Jon had heard from Lady Olenna herself that certain tracts of land in the south-eastern parts of the Reach may be used to entice Dornish lords to aid in the Tyrell recovery of Highgarden - and simultaneously punish those bannermen who had betrayed House Tyrell.

After a few moments’ quiet conversation with the Princess, Alynore dipped a polite curtsy, her eyes on Myrcella’s bulging belly as she turned away. Nora’s gaze landed on Jon, who had been watching with mild interest: Her face radiated pure delight for a moment, unguarded - and Lady Olenna, using her cane to aid her to her granddaughter’s side, saw Jon watching and gave a blatant, conspiratorial wink before she said, in a voice loud enough to hear if one wanted to listen, “We must sit you down my dear…all this lurching about is no good - I must take care of you, in your delicate state.”

Another kick to the gut.

Jon watched Nora closely; she did not look his way, but she was still smiling - even if a blush had blossomed high in her cheeks… _Delicate state_ … Nora was expecting a baby.

It was a good thing Jon was seated, as his head grew light. He gazed mournfully at Nora: He had given her what she asked, though he knew he would miss her cruelly. Her companionship had been…wonderful…

Then he remembered what Lady Olenna sharply observed: there was no pavilion for House Tyrell.

“Hmph,” Lady Olenna grunted, then her thin lips twitched to a smirk, and she made a very good show of ambling over to the main pavilion, leaning heavily on her cane, and on her granddaughter. To the comfortable chaise laden with cushions and furs.

“We had heard you suffered an illness at Dragonstone, Lady Olenna,” said the Princess gently, watching the old woman mount the steps up the dais to the chaise. It was quiet enough in the Dragonpit, above the noise of the city, that her voice was clearly audible. “You are not still recovering?”

“I shall endure yet, Princess,” Lady Olenna promised, as she groaned and sank down onto the chaise with her granddaughter’s help. Nora perched at the end of the chaise, looking wonderfully elegant, still blushing delicately. Lady Olenna propped her cane against the chaise. “Still, best not to tempt the gods. I must rest. Such a thoughtful gesture of your mother, to provide for an ailing old woman.”

Princess Myrcella smiled graciously, but no-one believed Lady Olenna to be ignorant that the chaise had been set aside for anyone but Cersei. Lady Olenna’s illness had weakened her heart, not her wits. She knew exactly what she was doing.

It was some time before the next party arrived, Zafiyah and Qezza leading the way bearing the standards of House Targaryen, Daenerys’ three-headed silver dragon ouroboros emblazoned on black silk. Both girls were beautifully dressed for cooler weather, emulating the sharp-shouldered fashions set by the Queen, adapted to their shimmering, jewel-fringed _tokars_ over the top of sharp-shouldered long-sleeved gowns of thick wool-lined silk trimmed with fur. Behind them marched Unsullied, escorting Daenerys’ court: Ser Jorah, in new Westerosi clothing, his armour covered in leather and emblazoned with the standing bear sigil of House Mormont that Jon knew so well; Missandei; several of the _dosh khaleen_ who had followed Daenerys from Vaes Dothrak; her fiercest Dothraki bloodriders; Theon and Yara Greyjoy and several of their men; and Lord Tyrion Lannister, who wore his golden Hand of the Queen pin proudly on his handsome black leather jerkin, his expression rather anxious.

Then he realised that each pavilion had been claimed, and a wicked grin spread across his scarred face. His eyes glinted as he beheld Lady Olenna, smirking upon Cersei’s chaise. Then his gaze slid to the Martell pavilion - to his niece, resplendent there, and Jon saw it, Lord Tyrion’s stunned disbelief and joy. True, genuine love poured from his face, as he hastened over to the pavilion, the princess rising from her seat to awkwardly try and embrace her smaller uncle, manoeuvring around her giant belly.

Lord Tyrion cooed at his niece, “My dearest one, get any larger and I shall not be able to see your lovely face. Come, sit, so that I may kiss you.” Princess Myrcella beamed, and reclaimed her seat; Lord Tyrion did indeed lean in to kiss her cheeks, his smile almost tremulous as his eyes glinted. “You’ve become a woman… And more _radiant_ than ever! Dorne agrees with you.”

“I have you to thank for my happiness, Uncle, for I know that it was you who sent me to Dorne,” Myrcella smiled, her hand cradled over her belly. “How I wept the day I left… Such joy awaiting me there, I could have had no idea.”

“I am glad you are happy, dearest,” Lord Tyrion said earnestly, and Princess Myrcella’s smile faded slightly.

“I never believed it, Uncle,” she said softly. “I know you loved us, more than anyone. I know you never would have hurt us.”

“You’re a good girl,” Lord Tyrion sighed, gazing at her with a sad smile tugging at his lips. “If you are the last of your siblings left… I am glad. Truth be told, you were always my favourite.”

“I know,” Princess Myrcella dimpled, and Lord Tyrion chuckled. He reached out to playfully flick her nose, and the princess giggled softly. Perched on one of the chairs, Lord Tyrion remained by his niece’s side as she told him of her life in Dorne, and they waited. While they did so, Daenerys’ courtiers grew impatient, and the Dothraki laughed as they dragged the empty chairs from under Cersei’s pavilion to Daenerys’, sprawling on them - one of the prettier dosh khaleen sitting in one of the bloodrider’s laps, playing fondly with his braid, while Qezza Galare and Zafiyah played a game of hopscotch in the sand, chasing each other around the chairs occupied by Missandei and Ser Jorah.

Cersei’s court was far larger, of course, and the first they heard of the Queen’s arrival was her courtiers assembling: They circled the pavilions, and Jon watched on grimly as they vied for the best view. There were not only Westerosi lords but emissaries from foreign courts: Qartheen and Pentoshi merchants; exquisite Lyseni who reminded Jon of little Neva; princes and princesses from the Summer Isles, wearing vivid colours Jon had never seen outside of Larra’s paintings, bedecked in fierce jewels and vibrant feathers and gold; small Braavosi in strange velvet robes; Volantene nobles; and of course, lesser nobles and the merchant princes of King’s Landing who had managed to sneak into the Dragonpit thanks to its sheer size, and the relative few guards in attendance - they were dotted around the Dragonpit at intervals, though Lord Tyrion had informed them that most of the exits had been blocked a century ago. The only way out was the way they had come.

The level of noise rose as Cersei’s courtiers gossiped amongst themselves - pointing out Princess Myrcella, the Queen’s daughter, heavy with child; the grim-faced King in the North, unimpressed; the kinslayer the Imp; the Queen of Thorns and her new champion, the new Lady of Highgarden - an unknown who was attracting a lot of attention with her beautiful gown and her even more exquisite looks.

Daenerys Targaryen’s absence was noted, and Jon knew the great crowd had little to do with the summit as it did the rumours of the attendance of the Dragon Queen. They wanted to get a look at her, the Mad King’s daughter - and her alleged dragons.

The chatter died, and Jon heard the tell-tale rattle of armour moments before Lannister soldiers appeared, protecting their Queen from all sides, while a dedicated Queensguard in simpler steel armour without a trace of gold flanked Cersei Lannister.

She wasn’t how Jon remembered her, in her shimmering silks and billowing sleeves and long, flowing golden hair.

Cersei was severe, now. Her long hair, shorn for her Walk of Shame, was growing out, reaching to her chin in simple, slightly tousled waves, and as Jon frowned and looked around, he noticed several other ladies wearing a similar cut - following the Queen’s example, they had trimmed their long locks of hair off too. A physical display of their loyalty. On her glimmering golden hair - darker than her daughter’s - was set a simple circlet that glinted silver in the light, as did the pauldrons on her shoulders, connected by a sinuous silver chain. Her gown was of leather with thousands of tiny cutouts revealing glimmers of silver fabric beneath.

There was no pretence, Jon understood. Sansa had known Cersei as the wife of a king, and then the mother of another king. She was Queen in her own right now, and on her own terms.

Following behind her was a monstrous man. If Jon had never met and fought beside giants, he might have thought the man shadowing Cersei Lannister was a giant himself. _The Mountain_ , he thought, remembering Lord Tyrion’s trial, and Gendry’s stories of Harrenhall, and glancing at Lord Beric, with his new leather eyepatch, his remaining eye fixed on the monstrous man. Behind the Mountain trailed a squirrely-looking man in a cowl but no maester’s chain; he wore a small golden hand pinned to his robes. More courtiers, armoured commanders of her armies - what was left of them - and Gold Cloaks of the City Watch escorted her, and a man in battered Ironborn armour grinned, a mad glint in his eyes, as he swaggered behind Cersei - to the blatant irritation of Ser Jaime Lannister, who looked as different now than Jon remembered him as Cersei did.

Cersei stopped dead before the Martell pavilion, as Princess Myrcella rose with a breathless gasp and a delighted cry, “ _Mother_!”

The Queen stared at the Princess. Her daughter. Resplendent in gold, radiant as the sun, heavy with child, the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen.

The most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen.

No longer a girl.

A woman. And an unforgiven reminder that Cersei…was _ageing_.

They all saw it. Something fractured between the Queen and her daughter as the Queen swept her sneering expression up and down Myrcella’s body - Myrcella, who still had her arms open to embrace, or be embraced by her mother. They had not seen each other in years. Slowly, Myrcella lowered her arms, as Queen Cersei made no move to embrace her; the smile faded from Myrcella’s beautiful face.

“Mother?” she said softly, her tone uncertain. “Will you not embrace me? Do I not still have your love?”

“You will address me as Your Grace,” Queen Cersei said coldly, her lip curling as she sneered at Myrcella’s growing belly. “I see no daughter of mine before me; only the whore of the Water Gardens as rumour named you.”

Gasps echoed around the Dragonpit: Ellaria laid her hand on Obara Sand’s arm as she jerked forward, fury written on her face. Lord Tyrion’s face was dark with fury as Princess Myrcella gasped, her eyes glimmering with tears. Genuine hurt and confusion coloured her features, and she glanced uncertainly at her uncle.

“Sweet sister, those who live in glass _whore_ houses would be wiser not to throw stones,” he growled, for a moment a vicious smirk illuminating his face as he looked pointedly at his handsome, scarred brother. “Come, sweetling, sit down. Your mother cannot forgive your beauty - and she has suffered deliciously for her shame.” He gave Cersei a vicious smile, tenderly and pointedly stroking Myrcella’s long golden hair as she sat herself down. “Nor can she forgive the reminder that she is in fact _old_. And nothing has yet reinforced that fact more vividly than the child thriving in your womb. Hm…the Queen is to be a _grand_ mother.”

They watched Myrcella accept her mother’s rejection with a natural poise that was breath-taking to behold - and as Cersei turned away from her daughter, the courtiers gossiped even more furiously, sympathetic looks cast to Princess Myrcella as Lady Ellaria rested her hand gently on Princess Myrcella’s clasped ones, her dark eyes on Cersei Lannister.

Ser Jaime, in his polished but battle-dented armour, his gilded-steel hand glinting in the sunlight, approached his niece - his _daughter_ \- to give her a chivalrous bow, take her hand in his, kiss it, and lean in to murmur something in her ear that made Myrcella’s lips twitch toward a tremulous smile. Ser Jaime Lannister kissed the girl’s brow and withdrew from the shade of the ochre pavilion.

The Queen strode on, chin raised, expression cold and twisting with a strange fury, her focus turning to the grandest pavilion…and Lady Olenna smirking as she rested comfortably on the chaise. Cersei’s chaise.

Lady Olenna just smiled blithely down at her.

The Mountain rested his hand on the hilt of his sword; the squirrelly man muttered something to him, his shrewd eyes scanning the crowds.

For several long, tense moments, Lady Olenna stared down Queen Cersei, who stood in the dust, her crown glinting…powerless.

Jon sighed, stood, stifled his smile, and lifted his own chair easily, carrying it over to the great pavilion. There were now no chairs there; Daenerys’ people had taken them all, sprawling about their pavilion with great ease. He carried the heavy, straight-backed chair over to the Lannister pavilion, and tucked it under the shade of the awning. Lady Olenna smirked at him, her eyes glinting, and Nora gave him a private expression he knew so well - at once amused and apologetic. He settled the chair down, reached down to dust the seat, and approached Cersei, nodding courteously, “Your Grace.”

Her lip curled, taking in the direwolves on his gorget.

“The King in the North, is it?” Cersei said coolly, sweeping her eyes over him. Jon stared back at her, bracing himself for whatever comment she could fling at him. He’d had a lifetime of this. Cersei narrowed her eyes, recognition sparking in her malevolent green eyes. “ _You_ … T’was your twin-sister that Robert was so enamoured of, at Winterfell… I remember, now. The two of you, dark-haired…those violet eyes of hers…I’d wager Robert died regretting he did not mount her when he had the chance - he regretted that he could not claim Lyanna Stark.”

“Yes, King Robert was struck by my sister’s resemblance to Father’s sister,” Jon said politely, his tone glacial, ignoring the not-so-veiled insinuation. “She had the look.”

“Had?” Cersei blinked, and a nasty smirk curled her lips. Her voice was silken as she said, “Yes…that’s right. The krakens rose up and killed the wolf-girl.” Her eyes slid over to the Greyjoys sitting beneath Daenerys’ banner.

“No. The wolf-girl killed the krakens, defending her brothers. She fled into the wilds,” Jon said quietly.

“From what I remember of that girl, the wilds was where she belonged,” Cersei said softly. “Half a beast herself - like that young wild creature, what was her name…Ariana?”

“Arya,” Jon corrected, and he gave her a nasty smile. “Aye, they were wild girls…and every man who ever met them preferred them to any other, no matter how beautiful, just as they did my aunt.”

The Queen gave him a scathing sneer that showed his barb had struck true.

“I did wonder the King did not set _you_ aside to wed her and make her his queen, sister,” Lord Tyrion mused, wandering over from the Martell pavilion, heading back to the Targaryen court, and his smile was cutting as he paused to gaze at Cersei. “She would have been _magnificent_. Could you imagine their children - fierce purple eyes and violent black curls!”

Jon stifled a shudder at the very thought.

“I do wonder that Robert did not try to father a bastard on her,” Cersei said caustically, glaring at her brother. She said, silkily, “Perhaps he tried.”

Jon stared long and hard at the Queen, until her smirk faded and she swallowed, averting her eyes, regretting her tartness and insinuation. Jon said merely, “Whether by a King or by krakens, Larra was never to be made _sport_ of.”

The shrieking of dragons pierced the air, and Ser Jaime Lannister noticeably jolted, his armour rattling, hand going to his sword. His expression was stricken, wary as he gazed at the skies.

Screams and gasps erupted as Viserion and Rhaegal swooped and dipped low, soaring past the jagged teeth of the broken crown that was the Dragonpit’s ancient crumbling domed ceiling. Cersei squinted, throwing up a hand to protect her eyes as the sand eddied around them, and Jon braced himself against the force of the wind created by the dragons’ wings. Swooping and shrieking, the dragons…seemed to be _toying_ with the courtiers, some of whom pelted toward the only exit as guards gaped in horror. Jon watched Viserion, gleaming cream-and-gold in the sunlight, circle overhead, screech, and disappear; a tell-tale thud echoed from the gardens, screams echoing off the still air, and the sound…it was almost like… _laughter_. A reptilian _chortle_. Rhaegal answered with a cooing song, wheeling and circling overhead, elegant as any dancer.

A roar shattered the air, and Drogon soared overhead, disturbing everything - whipping at the awnings, tearing at the elaborate hairstyles of the courtiers, whirling dust everywhere, making the braziers either side of Lady Olenna splutter and choke, and the dragon screamed as he landed high on the broken domed roof, his enormous clawed feet finding purchase on the benches that descended toward the sandy floor of the pit, and he flapped his great wings once for balance and to settle, knocking people off their feet, roaring again, so loudly Jon’s ears ached, and people whimpered and cried in the silence that followed, watching with mingled awe and a deathly terror as Drogon slowly, almost gently, lowered one of his wings. A tiny figure in black descended, standing complacently on his wing, unruffled.

Daenerys was stunning, in a caped black gown trimmed with vivid blood-red scaled embroidery and a fringe dripping with rubies. Her silver-blonde hair was braided and coiled and arranged artfully in tumbling curls over her breasts and down her back, held in place by the weight of a magnificent crown Jon had seen her wear several times at court in Dragonstone. Wrought into the shape of a three-headed dragon, the coils were made of a deep red-gold, the wings of silver and pale yellow-gold, and three heads were intricately carved from jade, ivory and onyx, inlaid with gold and silver filigree, and citrine, ruby and gold beads for glimmering, curiously sentient eyes. The crown had been a gift from the Tourmaline Brotherhood of Qarth, the only gift Daenerys received in that great city that she had not sold to fund her campaign - and several of the Qartheen ambassadors to Queen Cersei’s court knew it.

They had seen the Dragon Queen when her children were mere hatchlings. They resented her destruction of the House of Undying when she had wielded her hatchlings as weapons for the very first time… So far, she had evaded every assassination attempt the Qartheen could send her way: And there had been many.

Next to Drogon, Daenerys looked diminutive: As she walked to the pavilions, she looked regal and composed, almost dainty except for her expression. To Jon, she appeared…brutally neutral, even as people whimpered and children cried in shock and terror at the appearance of the dragons. Others eyed the Dragon Queen, her unruffled black caped gown, her magnificent crown, her gleaming pale-silver braids. She was young, and looked very beautiful.

Cersei by comparison looked like a bitter shrew.

“I see that it is true; the Dothraki have no concept of punctuality - or of politeness,” Cersei said coldly. “You have done well in terrifying half my court.”

“I thank you for the preparations,” Daenerys said, not pausing to acknowledge Cersei as she elegantly gathered her skirt, and Missandei dusted a chair for her queen. Daenerys arranged herself on her seat as if it was a throne, straight-backed, expression bland, her purple eyes glimmering with veiled hostility and contempt as she eyed Cersei. “I hope you were not put into discomfort.”

“More comfortable than the last Targaryen who came here, I’d wager,” Cersei said, her expression snide. Her eyes glinted evilly as she glared at her younger brother. “You know the story well, brother. It is a relic, now, of when the Targaryens tore the Seven Kingdoms apart. I say _when_ …one of so many times people had sought to overthrow their tyranny… Which of Queen Rhaenyra’s sons _was_ it who fell to his death over the Dragonpit?”

Lord Tyrion sighed heavily, drinking from a wine-skin. He stoppered it before answering, “It was Joffrey Velaryon.”

“That’s right. Joffrey… A brave boy, who gave his life to further her claim to the Iron Throne,” Cersei said, reflectively - her tone almost wistful. She raised her emerald eyes to Daenerys, smirking horribly. “In fact…he died defending her dragons, the source of her power. How many were there? You always knew your dragon-tales far better, brother. None of the rest of us _cared_.” She smirked at Lord Tyrion, a scoffing little laugh twisting her lips.

“There were four dragons chained in the Dragonpit when it was stormed by tens of thousands of smallfolk,” Lord Tyrion said, picking at a thread on his sleeve. “Shrykos, Morghul, Tyraxes and Dreamfyre.”

“And how many of them died?”

“All of them, as well as Rhaenyra’s dragon Syrax,” Lord Tyrion sniffed, “with her son Joffrey Velaryon, and thousands of the smallfolk.”

“It speaks volumes of the people’s _love_ for the Targaryens - centuries before my husband’s righteous rebellion,” Cersei mused, her face soft and thoughtful.

“Your son plummeted to his death, too, did he not?” said Daenerys, and Jon glanced sharply at her, frowning. Daenerys’ expression was bland, though her tone had been cool. “I was spared a great fall not so long ago, when one of my children suffered an attack…” Her eyes drifted to Ser Jaime Lannister, standing behind Cersei. “Dragons are far more durable than little boys. Drogon recovered quickly… But I remember my fear as I fell…” There was something unpleasant about her mouth as she said it, Jon frowned, something glimmering in her eyes - not hostility… He could not think of the word to describe it, only that he was disgusted she was alluding to what Cersei’s son would have thought and felt as he plunged to his death, to deliver Cersei yet more pain. Daenerys’ looks seemed to gentle. “I also lost a son, the child of my first husband. I offer my condolences, on the death of your son Tommen.”

For a heartbeat, Lord Tyrion’s hand faltered as he raised his wine-skin to his lips. He seemed to bolster himself, and took a swig from the wine-skin. Cersei barely acknowledged Daenerys’ words, just a brusque nod of the head.

“He was a sweet boy,” said Lady Olenna, and Jon tensed, his eyes on the old woman. He enjoyed her, liked her bluntness and flavourful delivery of shrewd observations - but what had she warned him, before this summit had even been arranged? ‘ _Wounds inflicted with words, not weapons_.’ Cersei’s subtle allusions to the people being tired of Targaryens and their dragons centuries before Deanerys’ return to Westerosi shores, and their willingness to fight to the death to destroy them; hinting at the suicide of Cersei’s younger son; insinuations against Larra’s virtue… “He would have made a wonderful king...and with Margaery as his queen…Jaehaerys and Alysanne, come again… He was utterly entranced by his beautiful, kind bride…utterly captivated…to take his own life, out of grief at her death… A tragedy _no-one_ could have accounted for.”

Lady Olenna’s eyes slid to Cersei, cunning and sharp as a blade, glittering with a snide smile.

Tommen’s suicide was _not_ a fatality Cersei had anticipated when she hatched her plan to blow up the Sept of Baelor with wildfire.

“Yes…many died needlessly that day,” Queen Cersei said softly. “Who could have _known_ there were caches of wildfire beneath the Sept - except, of course…the man who had them planted there? There were rumours, of course, the Mad King…” She blinked, demurring to Daenerys with a twisted smirk. “Pardon me, _King Aerys II_ …he littered the city with the stuff. They say, in the last days of the Rebellion, the King threatened that Robert Baratheon should have naught from him but ash.” Cersei’s malicious green eyes rested on Daenerys, a soft smirk on her lips. “Incredibly volatile, wildfire; I remember my brother Tyrion speaking of it as he planned the defence of this city so many years ago. Tragic, that something sparked it ablaze that dreadful day… I sometimes wake from nightmares, thinking about it…their deaths. My uncle Kevan, my kinsmen… How long did it take them to burn? My brother Jaime used to tell me stories, about people being burned alive, when he was Kingsguard to King Aerys. Great lords…and their sons and heirs…” Her eyes lingered on Jon, who leaned against one of the columns of his pavilion, arms folded across his chest, and frowned back at her grimly. Everyone knew who Cersei was alluding to: Rickard and Brandon Stark, and a soft hiss of whispers swept through the courtiers. “They died gruesomely…and slowly, their skin blistering and charring, their eyes dripping down their faces, as their hair caught alight and started to smoke… At least the wildfire…the explosion was quick. It took no longer than a heartbeat.”

“Yes… It would have been quick,” Lady Olenna sniffed brusquely, smoothing her skirts. “Far quicker than the butchery at Highgarden.” She adjusted herself on the chaise, turning to face Cersei fully, Lady Alynore perched elegantly between them, and for a brief moment, Nora raised her eyes to Jon’s face, sharing a look of dread and anticipation. Lady Olenna’s smile was soft and lethal as she said quietly, “Still, I would not have liked any of my family to die…the way that monstrous boy of yours did, clawing at their necks, foam and bile spilling from their mouths, eyes blood-red, skin purple…” Her lips were twitching into a deliciously nasty smirk. “Must have been horrible for you, as a mother…it was horrible enough for me. A _shocking_ scene… Not at _all_ what I had intended.”

Nora glanced sharply at her grandmother, who was smiling down at Cersei from the Queen’s chaise. “You see…I’d never seen the poison _work_ before…” Lady Olenna took great pains, while the impact of what she had said sank in, to hobble down the steps of the dais, leaning heavily on her granddaughter and her cane, so that when she stood beside Cersei, neither Ser Jaime nor the Mountain hulking behind her reached for their swords. A decrepit old woman - wielding words that cut sharper than Valyrian steel. “I wanted you to know it was me.”

Lady Olenna smiled, adjusted Cersei’s circlet as a doting grandmamma might her favourite, and walked out of the Dragonpit arm-in-arm with a shocked Lady Alynore, guarded by their men. They disappeared into their litter, and descended from the Dragonpit, all the way to the harbour unencumbered, to join their cousins in the Tyrell flagship - and sailed away, south, to join the forces of the Arbour already sailing to Oldtown, to march upon Highgarden and reclaim it.

Cersei looked ready to burst into flame, and her twin-brother beside her looked stunned and despondent, but not at all upset. Ser Jaime glanced across the pavilion to Lord Tyrion, who had been staring at Lady Olenna in awe and sudden realisation, and his twitching lips now hid behind his wine-skin.

Cersei inhales sharply, glaring at Lord Tyrion and Daenerys. “And _this_ is how you would begin peace-talks? Encouraging that old cunt to spread vicious lies meant to cut me open - when your guilt was pronounced before all by the will of the gods when the Mountain shattered the Red Viper’s head like a melon.”

Ellaria Sand hold a firm hand on Obara’s spear as she bristled, her expression lethal. The armoured giant near Cersei rests his hand on the hilt of his sword, which is almost as tall as Obara herself.

“I am beyond trying to convince you of my innocence, sister,” Lord Tyrion said, shrugging. “Since I had the foul luck to kill Mother as she pushed me out between her legs, you have been convinced I was sent by the gods to ruin our House.”

“The death of my sons and the murder of our father would suggest you have had the utmost success in that regard,” Cersei hissed. “Not to mention the Lion Culling in the Ash Meadow.”

“ _That_ was not my Lord Hand’s doing,” Daenerys said coolly, her eyes level on Cersei. “It was my decision and mine alone. I alone have the power to command my dragons, and I commanded them to destroy your armies and eradicate your House, as so many others have been destroyed at your family’s command… I do not know the truth of Lady Olenna’s being complicit in your older son’s death, but I do know this meeting provided the perfect place for her to injure you… On her behalf, I apologise for her conduct. Please believe I came to King’s Landing in good faith.”

Cersei’s bristling anger turned to incredulity, laughing.

“ _Good faith_? You burn babies in their mothers’ wombs, char brittle old men with dragonfire, steal away orphaned daughters for your savages to rape and breed upon, _good_ _faith_?” Cersei sneered, and Daenerys’ jaw flickered, Jon noticed, as she tried not to show her reaction, how those words had wounded her. The courtiers bristled and muttered, hateful glares cast Daenerys’ way - and she saw them. She saw their hate, their dread - and their sneers of disrespect, and the warning of the King in the North resounded in her head…’ _single most reviled person in Westeros…_ ’

“We did not come here to burn cities and murder innocents,” Lord Tyrion asserted. He tucked the stopper in his wine-skin and slipped off his seat. “We are all facing a unique - “

“I see you’ve found new friends, Theon!” One of the men amid Cersei’s courtiers swaggered to the front of the group clustered around Cersei’s pavilion, shouldering knights and ladies out of his way. He crowed over Theon, grinning like a madman. “Did your sister decide you were no more use to her, and sell you to the Unsullied? You fit the criteria, ever since they took your favourite toy… I heard you cried when it was taken from you.”

Lord Tyrion cast a questioning look at his brother, who answered him with another look: No words were exchanged, but they did not need to speak. They understood each other.

“We have larger concerns than the fate of Theon Greyjoy,” Lord Tyrion said, with a respectful nod toward Theon.

“Then why are you talking?” the man asked. “You’re the smallest concern here.”

“Do you remember, when last we saw each other at Winterfell, we discussed dwarf jokes?” Lord Tyrion said, turning to exchange a look with Theon Greyjoy.

“His wasn’t even good,” Theon said bluntly, his expression utterly familiar to Jon.

“He explained it at the end,” Tyrion chided, tutting. “Never explain it; it ruins it.”

“We don’t even let your kind live in the Iron Islands, you know,” said the man. “We kill you at birth. A mercy for the parents.”

“No wonder you’ve befriended my sweet sister,” Lord Tyrion quipped, giving Cersei a snarling, vicious little smile. “She would have done the same, though certainly _not_ as a mercy.”

Jon glanced at Ser Davos. _This is going to go on forever_ , Jon thought. All of them, trying to wound and one-up each other. He strode forward, as Ser Jaime and Cersei snarled at the man in black, and he was vaguely aware of Daenerys’ voice and that of Lord Tarly, as he unbolted the lid of the crate, and slid it off, heaving a great kick at the side of the crate, upturning it.

The wight screamed, tumbling out, and hurtled at full speed toward the great pavilion. Screaming and snarling, scratching its decomposing fingers through the air, it hissed and shrieked and fought against the chain wrapped around it, mere feet from Lord Tyrion and Euron Greyjoy and Queen Cersei - on her feet, snarling at Tyrion again - at Daenerys, who was flanked by two bloodriders, and Ser Jaime, who jolted, stunned, his gleaming hand moving in reflex to his sword-hilt - his golden hand was useless, and he struggled to unsheathe the sword belted at his right, true shock and horror mingling on his face as he attempted to comprehend what thrashed and screamed before him.

Jon perched on the edge of the upturned crate, long legs spread before him, arms folded across his chest, and watched patiently. They scattered and shrank back, horrified. The chain held, but Jon could feel the crate vibrate with the force of the wight’s tugs and straining against its bonds. They were regular steel, not dragonglass, and he was taken back to his first ever wight, in the Lord Commander’s chambers - how silent Ghost had howled, and snarled at the Lord Commander’s door until Jon broke it down… His hand smarted, at the memory of the burn he had received, flinging a flaming torch-bracket at the wight when no weapon could deter it.

He watched the Lannister soldiers react - the Mountain lurching forward - all their weapons unsheathed, on the attack.

Yet nothing they could do to the wight stopped it in its tracks. Nothing. Not even the Mountain.

From his spot perched on the crate, Jon watched, ignoring the pain in his ears from the noise of the wight’s screaming. He stood, finally, as the soldiers retreated, appalled, the wight still hissing and screaming on the ground in writhing pieces. Stifled screams echoed around the Dragonpit as courtiers looked on in horror. Jon approached, slowly, as Ser Davos joined him, carrying a torch and tinder; Jon unsheathed his obsidian dagger. “They can be destroyed by fire…” He lit the lower torso still kicking and writhing on the ground, and the dismembered limbs, “Or with weapons of obsidian.”

Staring baldly at Ser Jaime Lannister, e stabbed the wight through the crumbling, rotting skull. The creature collapsed. For good measure, Ser Davos lit the remains.

“You were right, Ser Jaime, it has been _thrilling_ to serve in the Night’s Watch, guarding you from wildlings and White Walkers and all the perils beyond the Wall,” Jon said tartly. “Don’t worry…they’re nothing more than sacks of meat, blood…a little bone to keep it all standing… That was a soldier of the Night King’s army. Just one of thousands. _That_ is the fate of every person in the world if we do not stop him… Winter has come, Your Grace. And with it, the White Walkers.”

“I didn’t believe it until I saw them,” Daenerys said calmly, though her eyes were wide. She had been severely ill, clinging to Drogon’s back, with only vague impressions of the frozen lake. Seeking a wight up close… “I saw them all.”

Lord Tarly stood, stifling a sneer in Daenerys’ direction as he joined Jon, addressing Ser Jaime. “I was with His Grace beyond the Wall when we captured the foul creature. They have fifteen legions, no fewer. And that is only their infantry. Giants and mammoths, shadow-cats and bears. And their commanders…” He clenched his jaw, his eyes searing Ser Jaime’s face. “Their commanders would make your father cower, and that is not a thing I say lightly of the Old Lion.”

“You’ve seen them?” Ser Jaime breathed.

“I have.”

“This is why I am asking you _both_ to set aside your war,” Jon said, glancing from Cersei to Daenerys, giving them both the same stern, implacable look, “just long enough to defeat the Night King’s armies. Because if you do not…then _that_ will be the fate of every person in this world. There is only one war that matters, Your Grace.” He glanced at Queen Cersei. “The Great War. And it is here.”

For a moment, Cersei said nothing. She was still staring at the burning wight, her eyes wide, a hand clamped over her stomach, shock plain on her face.

But as Jon roused her attention by speaking directly to her, she slowly raised her face, and as she did so her expression twisted nastily. “You have overplayed your hand,” she seethed at Daenerys, at her younger brother. “You conspire with this treasonous bastard who calls himself _King in the North_ , and use black magic to assassinate me! _KILL THEM_.”

“Cersei - !” Ser Jaime blurted.

“ _Stay your blades!_ ” Jon bellowed, as everyone reached for the swords, glaring at the Queen. “ _Do not engage_!”

A bone-chilling scream shattered the air, a shriek so loud and so high, it pained their ears, and sand blinded them as monstrous wings flapped like the clap of thunder. They were buffeted off their feet, knocked backwards into the sand, weapons falling from their grip as they shielded their stinging eyes. All but one, and he thundered towards Jon, his sword raised.

The great green-and-bronze dragon shrieked, and vomited fire.

A Mountain crumbled to ash, drifting in the breeze like dead leaves.

The dragon rumbled softly, flapping its wings delicately, cooing softly over the flames to Jon, who staggered to his feet, Long Claw gripped tightly in his hand, the rippling smoky blade coming to life in the firelight, as the dust settled. Over the flames, Rhaegal poked his nose at Jon, who felt something twinge in the pit of his stomach, his heart leaping with a strange and unfamiliar joy, and he reached out his hand, a soft and uncertain smile on his face, to press his palm against the dragon’s snout. His heat seared Jon’s hand, but it did not hurt; it felt heartening, like a dose of hard liquor after a shock. Rhaegal snorted softly, blinking his great bronze eyes, and flapped his wings, churning the embers that had once been a Mountain.

In the quiet, a Hound barked.

Sandor Clegane’s laughter echoed off the dilapidated, soot-blackened walls of the ancient Dragonpit, loud and clear and hearty, as if he had never laughed before, and had no idea how to stop - or any desire to. He sat in the sand, watching the ashes of the Mountain swirl in the air as Rhaegal raised his head and screamed once, as if in warning, before taking to careen around the Dragonpit, and Sandor Clegane _laughed_.

Lord Tyrion was grinning, “ _Rhaegar’s revenge…”_

“ _What_?” Queen Cersei snapped, her twin-brother helping her off the floor, covered in dust. They all were. Jon dusted the ash off his brigandine, wrinkling his nose in distaste to realise they were the ashes of the dead…and Rhaegal had burned the Mountain _to protect him_.

Daenerys had not commanded him to: Rhaegal had acted on his own.

“That dragon, the green-and-bronze…he was named for Rhaegar. Fascinating that it should be him that finally killed the one who mutilated Rhaegar’s children, and brutalised Rhaegar’s wife,” Lord Tyrion said, grinning, as he raised his wine-skin in salute to House Martell: Lady Ellaria’s dark eyes were gleaming with triumph, Obara’s face finally split into a satisfied grin. Rhaegal had given them the justice that had been stolen from them. “Yes…curious indeed… The Mountain is naught but ash…” Lord Tyrion giggled softly, and shook the dust from his dark gold curls. He sighed, and fixed Cersei with a sharp and implacable look that reminded Cersei absurdly of her father. Ser Jaime looked at his little brother, and acknowledged what no-one ever had: That Tyrion was far more Tywin than any of his children. “We are not _here_ to assassinate you, Cersei, and the only reason Rhaegal attacked was because you commanded your men to murder us, as he was ready to do the moment you stepped foot inside this pit.”

“That wight was not a trick, or black magic wielded by Daenerys - it is a soldier of the Night King,” Jon said gravely, sheathing Long Claw after eyeing the guards, who stood trembling. “If we do not work together, we are all dead… Queen Daenerys graciously allowed me to mine obsidian on Dragonstone, to arm my men for the coming war. And she did so, in spite of the fact that I would not kneel. I shall never yield the North to the Iron Throne, no matter who sits upon it: We shall remain a free and independent kingdom. Moreover, the North shall remain neutral in the conflict between Dragonstone and the Iron Throne…”

“And why should I believe that?”

“Because Winterfell is now a safe haven to the last of your family. Queen Daenerys… _spared_ seven daughters of Casterly Rock,” Jon said, and beneath her black awning, Daenerys shifted ever so slightly in her seat. “The closest of their kin at her court, Lord Tyrion, has asked me to take the girls as wards of Winterfell, for the duration of the winter and your war.”

“Seven little girls?” Cersei scoffed, smirking and shaking her head.

“Which little girls?” Ser Jaime frowned, his eyes widening slightly, even as Queen Cersei continued to smirk. Jon held a glare long enough that she grew uncomfortable under his quelling gaze, then turned to Ser Jaime.

“Lady Narcisa Lannister, eldest daughter of Lord Tytan and Lady Lovisa Lannister. Lady Crisantha, only daughter of Lord Jason and Lady Merinda,” Jon said, recounting all the details, the names, the little golden faces tearstained and exhausted. “Lady Delphine, youngest daughter of Lord Teobald and Lady Leila. Calanthe the Lioness, daughter of Lord Loreon and Lady Louella. Lady Altheda, daughter of Lord Hagon and Lady Lyra. Lady Rosamund, daughter of Lord Lyman and Lady Jacquetta. And Lady Leona, daughter of Lord Leovar and Lady Rohanne.”

“Aunt Genna chose them herself,” Lord Tyrion said quietly, glancing at his siblings. Ser Jaime’s lips parted, but the Queen’s eyes narrowed.

“They will remain at Winterfell, educated and protected,” Jon said earnestly.

“And why should we trust you to keep them safe?” the Queen sneered. Jon levelled his stare on her again: It was more effective than shouting.

“Trust my sister Sansa to do better than the example shown her,” Jon said harshly, and Queen Cersei glanced back at him, shrinking under the strength of the quiet rage in Jon’s face. Her eyelashes fluttered as she glanced away from his unyielding gaze. Jon sighed, and shook off his anger, the reminder of Sansa’s mistreatment. “Your armies have suffered a defeat, I know, and with things as they are, the likelihood of calling your banners to aid the North is slim…but long have the dungeons of King’s Landing been emptied to man the Wall. I would ask that you do so now, Your Grace, and send north your criminals to defend the Seven Kingdoms.”

“That’s all you want?” The Queen seemed surprised.

“That’s the best I can hope for from you,” Jon said, subtle accusation lacing his tone.

“It seems a strange joke…dungeons full of the worst kinds of criminals…in exchange for the safety of seven little orphans,” Cersei said, with a tittering laugh.

“The girls’ safety is not _conditional_ , Your Grace,” Jon glowered. “Those girls are daughters of the North for all intents and purposes, and shall be treated as such.”

“Why?” Ser Jaime asked, staring at Jon.

“Why not?” Jon said grimly, scowling at the handsome knight. He looked very different to the man Jon remembered being so snide to him in the courtyard at Winterfell. He seemed…more tangible now, more _real_ \- as if _this_ was the man he had always been, beneath the gilded front he put on. Jon was aware that there was… _something_ between Ser Jaime and Lady Brienne, that a bond had formed during their journey together after he had been quested by Lady Catelyn to bring her daughters home…

“How long?” the little man, Queen Cersei’s Hand, turned to Jon. “Your Grace, how long until the dead march south?”

“If they breach the Wall…months,” Jon said grimly. “And it’s only a matter of time, now, until they do.”

“If I may, Your Grace…a quiet word…”

The Queen turned to her Hand, giving him a cool look; she turned, walking away, regal and unfazed by the violence, by the ash, by the dragons circling overhead. Jon frowned as they went, hoping against hope that the Queen’s Hand was shrewd and cunning and clever enough to realise the advantages this presented them. And help _Cersei_ realise them.

A little voice inside Jon’s head, one that sounded suspiciously like Larra, told him that an armistice, however temporary, could only be to Cersei’s benefit. The little voice mused that while Daenerys’ forces were committed in the North, Cersei would have time to recover from her losses in the south, to consolidate her power over the kingdoms…to weaponise her cities and motivate and mobilise her population to fight for her.

Jon was relieved Daenerys had committed her armies to fighting the Night King.

He still did not believe that Daenerys would be a better ruler on the Iron Throne than any who had come before her, even if she managed to claim it.

Perhaps, in time, she could learn how to be a ruler, to _lead_ …but all her thoughts - all her experience - were turned toward _conquest_ , not what came after. He had seen it on Dragonstone.

He had seen it in the rare vulnerability she had shown him at Eastwatch, her uncertainty, her confusion. He wondered if she actually knew how to remain _still_ …how to _live_ , without something in the back of her mind spurring her ever onwards, striving and straining… What would she do, when she finally got what she wanted?

What would she do, if she _didn’t_ get it?

Jon was happy for the North to remain neutral. He was not convinced, and for all her promises and self-reflection that night she had forced herself upon him, that Daenerys had truly thought it through, the idea versus the reality of committing her armies. Of _sacrificing_ them to defeat the Night King.

Cersei returned. Her Hand dusted her chair for her, and the Queen sat. “If my brother Jaime informs me correctly, you’re asking for a truce.”

“Yes,” said Daenerys simply. “That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Cersei blinked, her expression dangerously benign. “Pull back my armies and stand down while you go on your monster-hunt. Or while you solidify and expand your position, hard for me to know which it is…with my armies pulled back.”

“Which armies would those be?” Lord Tyrion quipped: Cersei ignored him.

“Then you would return and march on _my_ capital with four times the men,” Cersei snarled.

“I could take King’s Landing in a fraction of an hour,” Daenerys said coldly, her eyes alight with a self-righteous fury. “And yet my children circle this…ruin, protecting me from harm, so that we may discuss terms. King’s Landing will remain safe until the Northern threat has been dealt with. You have my word.”

“The word of the Mad King’s daughter?” Cersei sneered.

“When your father summoned Lord Rickard Stark to King’s Landing, the King _gave his word_ that until Lord Stark arrived at the capital, no harm would come to his son and heir… Lord Stark came south,” said Ser Jaime Lannister, directly addressing Daenerys for the first time. He looked like he was supremely aware that before him sat the daughter of the man whose throat he had opened, whose back he had shoved a sword through. “The King had his Warden of the North burned alive while his son watched, strapped in a torture device that strangled him as he struggled to free himself and put an end to his father’s gruesome, slow death…”

“You like to burn people, too, don’t you,” said Cersei silkily. “Wise Masters, Dothraki _khals_ , pregnant women and children…”

“You informed my commanders who surrendered at the Ash Meadow that you did not come to Westeros to destroy our cities, burn down our homes, murder us and orphan our children… You told them that, after you had burned their armies - before you went on, to burn women and babies… Your word accounts for nothing.”

“Mine, then?” Lord Tyrion said, ending a brittle silence that had Daenerys fuming where she sat, glaring with wide eyes at Ser Jaime Lannister. At the sound of her Hand’s voice, Daenerys lowered her gaze, her expression gentling, as if she was tucking away her rage, the story of her father’s maliciousness, the value of his _word_ … “Did I not do everything in my power to defend this city, and all those who live within it, did I not give mine own blood defending it, when Stannis Baratheon laid siege to King’s Landing? I did not suffer any harm to come to any of its peoples then, no matter who they were - no matter what they deserved,” he glanced meaningfully at Cersei “- and I will not suffer to let it happen now.”

After a few moments, Cersei sighed softly, and her expression relented. “The Crown accepts your truce, until the dead are defeated. They are the true enemy.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Jon said, giving her a respectful, formal half-bow.

“My Lord Hand shall see to it that the dungeons of the Red Keep are emptied, the able-bodied men sent north…”

“We’ll ferry them north,” said Yara Greyjoy, the first time she had spoken, and beside her, Theon nodded.

The Queen glanced at her Hand, who nodded, bowing slightly to Lady Greyjoy. Cersei gazed at Jon. “May they be more honourable in their deaths than they ever were in life.”

* * *

“Well…that could have been far worse.”

“I anticipated it would be.”

“One death, and one confession of regicide,” Ser Davos said rather cheerfully. “Can’t say I’m sorry to see the Mountain reduced to cinders - or surprised, that Lady Olenna had the nerve to claim she’d poisoned the boy-king.”

“Nor I,” Jon agreed. They strode through the harbour, Jon itching to get on-board his ship. Unless Cersei launched flaming debris from trebuchets, his fleet was safe - _he_ was safe to depart King’s Landing and never look back.

He could already see chained men being herded onto Yara Greyjoy’s ships: Queen Cersei had been true to her word about _that_ , at least. She had given him exactly what Daenerys had: Nothing. They had both given him something without yielding anything. Obsidian and criminals, it made no matter; they were both the same.

And yet, even a thousand more men helped.

And Princess Myrcella had brought one thousand spearmen with her: They were to accompany Obara Sand to Winterfell, where her sister Nymeria already waited as Dornish emissary at the Northern court. The spearmen were Prince Doran’s contribution to Jon’s war-effort.

A thousand Dornish spearmen; the bowels of the Red Keep emptied onto Greyjoy ships.

More soldiers than he’d had when he woke up this morning.

“Your Grace?” Crimson glimmered, and Lannister soldiers marched forward, escorting Ser Jaime Lannister, who looked sombre and somewhat shaken. He stopped, the soldiers froze, and he bowed low to Jon.

“Ser Jaime,” Jon said quietly.

“I had hoped to catch you. You are leaving now?”

“As soon as the last of the supplies are loaded,” Jon nodded. “I am anxious to return to the North. Please pass on my thanks to Her Grace for the men.”

“I made certain those who showed symptoms of sickness were prevented from boarding the ships,” Ser Jaime said, his eyes dancing, his smile rather rueful. “My sister has a way of giving poisoned gifts.”

“I appreciate that,” Jon said, startled by the knight’s candour. “What can I do for you, Ser?”

“It’s…what I can do for _you_ ,” Ser Jaime said, with a slight wince, glancing around the bustling quay as if abashed. He glanced over his shoulder, summoning someone with a gesture. A cluster of wizened old men in robes shuffled forward, squinting as if the sunlight pained them. “You said obsidian and _fire_ can destroy the wights?”

“They do,” Jon confirmed.

“These men are what remains of King Aerys’ Guild of Pyromancers. These men are the only men in Westeros who can create wildfire,” Ser Jaime said, and Jon stared, his gaze falling quickly to the small nervous-looking men. “During the siege of King’s Landing, my brother put them to use to safeguard Blackwater Bay against Stannis Baratheon’s fleet - to great effect.”

“I well remember,” Ser Davos said grimly, glancing at Jon.

“With Queen Daenerys allying with you to fight against the Night King, I am sure my brother will be present at Winterfell to aid the siege preparations,” Ser Jaime said. “Tyrion has a mind for strategy, and wielded wildfire in such a way that it was the advancing army, and not the innocents living within the city walls, who were caught up in the explosions… The Pyromancers’ Guild has endured this long for a reason - I know it is for something far less petty than setting alight the Sept of Baelor.” He condemned his sister’s actions as well as giving his damning opinion of the Pyromancers’ Guild in one sentence.

Jon’s mind was racing. Pyromancers - _wildfire_. With that… Sansa had told Jon what she had glimpsed from the castle windows as Stannis Baratheon’s fleet advanced…and was obliterated into nothing more than splinters and embers, the entire Bay glowing emerald-green… With wildfire…

“Thank you, Ser Jaime,” Jon said, his voice rich with earnestness. The knight nodded.

“You will know, of course, that the Lannister armies are severely depleted,” Ser Jaime said, frowning. “There were many witnesses today to what lies in store for us through the winter. And there are still brave, honourable men in the south, though it is understandable that you would not believe it…” Jon said nothing: Many of his black brothers were from the south. He couldn’t blame the brothers he had loved and lost because they came from the same places as Janos Slynt and Alliser Thorne. Ser Jaime raised his emerald-green eyes to Jon’s: They looked sombre and haunted, a far cry from the arrogant man with dancing eyes glittering with irony who had taunted Jon that day at Winterfell. “I will do my utmost to assemble as many men as I can.”

Jon understood what Ser Jaime was implying: He was willing to commit treason and usurp his sister’s command of her armies to take men north to fight against the Night King.

Just the act of putting the Pyromancers’ Guild at Jon’s disposal - when Cersei was undoubtedly already planning her next moves while Daenerys headed north, and would likely desire to wield wildfire against Daenerys’ armies - was treasonous in itself.

Strange, to see the Kingslayer in such a way. Willing to defy his queen to do what was _right_.

Jon remembered what Tyrion had said, so long ago, in the throne room at Dragonstone. That the Mad King had littered King’s Landing with secret caches of wildfire to burn the city to the ground, rather than yield it to Robert Baratheon’s advancing forces… That Ser Jaime had plunged the sword into Aerys’ back and slit his throat for good measure - so the Mad King could not give the order to burn hundreds of thousands of people alive.

The King in the North stared at the Kingslayer, and wondered why he had never made the truth widely known.

People would have believed him: After all, it was Aerys’ cruelty the Seven Kingdoms had rebelled against. Lord Rickard and Brandon’s gruesome executions, and Lord Arryn raising his banners when King Aerys demanded both Ned Stark and the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands Robert Baratheon, had ignited the rebellion.

“Thank you, Ser Jaime,” Jon said sombrely.

The knight nodded, and the little pyromancers scuttled up the gangway to board _Winter_ , wringing their hands and muttering amongst themselves in agitation. Ser Davos caught Jon’s eye, raising his eyebrows, but Jon…was overwhelmed by the brief sensation of… _relief_. It was utterly foreign to him - and very welcome, no matter how fragile and temporary it was.

“Now we’ll have other options if the Queen decides to throw a tantrum,” Ser Davos muttered low, his beard twitching, and Jon nodded, some sharp pain in his chest easing. Yes…he hadn’t even thought of _that_ , just of the practical applications of wildfire for warfare - but, yes, that did mean that if Daenerys threatened to withdraw support, at least they now had the means to make fire of their own without having to cut down the wolfswood in its entirety to burn it.

“This is much more than I dared hope for,” Jon murmured, and Ser Davos nodded his agreement: Truth be told, both of them had anticipated the summit to end with exactly what Cersei had done - thrown a fit and set her guards upon them after screaming about conspiracies and assassinations. Thankfully - thanks to _Rhaegal_ \- the destruction of the Mountain had afforded them precious moments in which Jon had taken advantage of the Queen’s shock…

One thousand Dornish spears. The black cells emptied to fight in the North. And pyromancers to create _wildfire_ …

More than he had had when he woke up this morning.

“I wish you good fortune,” Ser Jaime said earnestly, “in the wars to come.”

“And you, Ser,” Jon said quietly. Ser Jaime stepped back with his guards, watching Ser Davos and Jon approaching the gangway, cleared now of the last of the supplies and equipment Jon had had the foresight to send people to purchase while they were in the capital.

He turned toward the ship, and Jon’s eyes glanced over a diminutive figure in grubby clothing, who sat perched on a barrel beside the gangway, dark hair twisted into a neat plaited knot, heavy eyebrows hovering over strange eyes, a small Braavosi sword at their belt.

Jon froze. Stared straight ahead, feeling as if the wind had been knocked from him.

He turned sharply, eyes wide, not daring to believe it - he _gaped_ , stunned and winded.

The young woman on the barrel gazed back at him, her unusual eyes glimmering. Her gloved hand was wrapped around the hilt of Needle.

Jon stumbled down the gangway, his arms wide.

And, as she had the last time he saw her, Arya leapt into them. She clung on as if for dear life.

Jon’s eyes burned; Arya whimpered a soft sob, and he squeezed her tighter, gasping and shocked.

_Arya!_

Eventually, she wriggled - as she always had - and Jon reluctantly set her down on her feet, realising he had been holding her dangling two feet off the ground. She was still just as little.

“I worried you wouldn’t recognise me,” she said, her voice softer than Jon ever remembered it. She had always been _vibrant_ , irrepressible - she had been so like Larra that way, wild and free, and _good_.

His breath was stolen from his lungs as he gazed down at her, grief and disbelief warring on his face as he swiped at his burning eyes. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She had grown up. And her unusual eyes were drenched in sorrow and far too much understanding for someone so young. There was a calm to her now, a stillness, but when she gazed up at Jon, her eyes glinted with tears, her voice shook, and she dived in for another, briefer hug that knocked the breath from Jon’s lungs again.

“ _Arya_!” he breathed, leaning down to kiss her head, his eyes burning with tears. As she straightened, he blinked furiously, shaking his head, uncomprehending, “ _Arya_.”

“Do I have to call you King Jon now?”

“And curtsey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone bawling? Anyone screaming? Both?! Told you, you’d love it!
> 
> So…I’ve just started reading Throne of Glass - without realising there are eight books in the series. And I’m undecided whether I’m annoyed enough about the characterisation to rewrite the whole thing with my own OC as main character replacing Celaena/Aelin, or if I care to invest in all those eight books when I really dislike the characterisation of the heroine (I keep getting whiplash, and think maybe Maas was writing two characters and accidentally mushed them together)… Same issue I have with Feyre in ACoTaR - loved the world, loved the men, hated every female character except Amren! A rewrite may be required for that, too (for a more mature readership!) - but I just…let me know, anyone who’s read the books and was dissatisfied with the portrayal of a teenage ‘assassin’ who took every opportunity to act more like Serena van der Woodsen: Arya Stark and the flirtatious but lethal Natasha Romanov have ruined me for portrayals of female assassins of any age. Also, my OC would not be a blue-eyed blonde: I’m tired of blondes being the standard for ethereal, otherworldly beauty! (cough, *Daenerys* cough)


End file.
